THE  QUEEN  OF  HEARTS 


a 


BY 


WILKIE    COLLINS 

AUTHOR   OF 

"THE  DKAD  SECRKT"  "THE  MOONSTONE"  "MAN  AND  wire" 
"THK  WOMAN  IN  WHITE"  "POOR  MISS  FINCH"  ETC. 


ILLUSTRATED 


NEW    YORK 

HARPER    &    BROTHERS  PUBLISHERS 
1893 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1874,  by 

HARPER  &  BROTHERS, 

0  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Cone-re1-.":,  at  Wnshington. 


2224680 


TO 


EMILE   FORGUES. 

AT  a  time  when  French  readers  were  altogether 
unaware  of  the  existence  of  any  books  of  my  writing, 
a  critical  examination  of  my  novels  appeared  under 
your  signature  in  the  "  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes."  I 
read  that  article,  at  the  time  of  its  appearance,  with 
sincere  pleasure  and  sincere  gratitude  to  the  writer, 
and  I  have  honestly  done  my  best  to  profit  by  it  ever 
since. 

At  a  later  period,  when  arrangements  were  made 
for  the  publication  of  my  novels  in  Paris,  you  kindly 
undertook,  at  some  sacrifice  of  your  own  convenience, 
to  give  the  first  of  the  series — The  Dead  Secret — the 
great  advantage  of  being  rendered  into  French  by 
your  pen.  Your  excellent  translation  of  The  Light- 
house had  already  taught  me  how  to  appreciate  the 
value  of  your  assistance ;  and  when  The  Dead  Secret 
appeared  in  its  French  form,  although  I  was  sensibly 
gratified,  I  was  by  no  means  surprised  to  find  my  for- 
tunate work  of  fiction,  not  translated,  in  the  mechan- 
ical sense  of  the  word,  but  transformed  from  a  novel 
that  I  had  written  in  my  language  to  a  novel  that  you 
might  have  written  in  yours. 


VI  DEDICATION. 

I  am  now  about  to  ask  you  to  confer  one  more  lit- 
erary obligation  on  me  by  accepting  the  dedication 
of  this  book,  as  the  earliest  acknowledgment  which  it 
has  been  in  my  power  to  make  of  the  debt  I  owe  to 
my  critic,  to  my  translator,  and  to  my  friend. 

The  stories  which  form  the  principal  contents  of 
the  following  pages  are  all,  more  or  less,  exercises  in 
that  art  which  I  have  now  studiecf  anxiously  for  some 
years,  and  which  I  still  hope  to  cultivate,  to  better 
and  better  purpose,  for  many  more.  Allow  me,  by 
inscribing  the  collection  to  you,  to  secure  one  reader 
for  it  at  the  outset  of  its  progress  through  the  world 
of  letters  whose  capacity  for  seeing  all  a  writer's  de- 
fects may  be  matched  by  many  other  critics,  but  whose 
rarer  faculty  of  seeing  all  a  writer's  merits  is  equaled 
by  very  few.  WILKIE  COLLINS. 


THE  QUEEN   OF  HEARTS 


CHAPTER  I. 

OURSELVES. 

WE  were  three  quiet,  lonely  old  men,  and  SHE  was  a 
lively,  handsome  young  woman,  and  we  were  at  our  wits' 
end  what  to  do  with  her. 

A  word  about  ourselves,  first  of  all — a  necessary  word 
to  explain  the  singular  situation  of  our  fair  young  guest. 

We  are  three  brothers ;  and  we  live  in  a  barbarous, 
dismal  old  house  called  The  Glen  Tower.  Our  place  of 
abode  stands  in  a  hilly,  lonesome  district  of  South  Wales. 
No  such  thing  as  a  line  of  railway  runs  any  where  near 
us.  No  gentleman's  seat  is  within  an  easy  drive  of  us. 
We  are  at  an  unspeakably  inconvenient  distance  from  a 
town,  and  the  village  to  which  we  send  for  our  letters  is 
three  miles  off. 

My  eldest  brother,  Owen,  was  brought  up  to  the 
Church.  All  the  prime  of  his  life  was  passed  in  a  popu- 
lous London  parish.  For  more  years  than  I  now  like  to 
reckon  up,  he  worked  unremittingly,  in  defiance  of  failing 
health  and  adverse  fortune,  amid  the  multitudinous  mis- 
.ery  of  the  London  poor ;  and  he  would,  in  all  probabili- 
ty, have  sacrificed  his  life  to  his  duty  long  before  the 
.present  time  if  The  Glen  Tower  had  not  come  into  his 
possession  through  two  unexpected  deaths  in  the  elder 
and  richer  branch  of  our  family.  This  opening  to  him 

1* 


8  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

of  a  place  of  rest  and  refuge  saved  his  life.  No  man 
ever  drew  breath  who  better  deserved  the  gifts  of  for- 
tune ;  for  no  man,  I  sincerely  believe,  more  tender  of  oth- 
ers, more  diffident  of  himself,  more  gentle,  more  gener- 
ous, and  more  simple-hearted  than  Owen,  ever  walked 
this  earth. 

My  second  brother,  Morgan,  started  in  life  as  a  doctor, 
and  learned  all  that  his  profession  could  teach  him  at 
home  and  abroad.  He  realized  a  moderate  independence 
by  his  practice,  beginning  in  one  of  our  large  northern 
towns,  and  ending  as  a  physician  in  London ;  but,  al- 
though he  was  well  known  and  appreciated  among  his 
brethren,  he  failed  to  gain  that  sort  of  reputation  with 
the  public  which  elevates  a  man  into  the  position  of  a 
great  doctor.  The  ladies  never  liked  him.  In  the  first 
place,  he  was  ugly  (Morgan  will  excuse  me  for  mention- 
ing this) ;  in  the  second  place,  he  was  an  inveterate 
smoker,  and  he  smelt  of  tobacco  when  he  felt  languid 
pulses  in  elegant  bedrooms ;  in  the  third  place,  he  was 
the  most  formidably  outspoken  teller  of  the  truth  as  re- 
garded himself,  his  profession,  and  his  patients,  that  ever 
imperiled  the  social  standing  of  the  science  of  medicine. 
For  these  reasons,  and  for  others  which  it  is  not  neces- 
sary to  mention,  he  never  pushed  his  way,  as  a  doctor, 
into  the  front  ranks,  and  he  never  cared  to  do  so.  About 
a  year  after  Owen  came  into  possession  of  The  Glen  Tow- 
er, Morgan  discovered  that  he  had  saved  as  much  money 
for  his  old  age  as  a  sensible  man  could  want ;  that  he 
was  tired  of  the  active  pursuit — or,  as  he  termed  it,  of 
the  dignified  quackery — of  his  profession  ;  and  that  it 
was  only  common  charity  to  give  his  invalid  brother  a 
companion  who  could  physic  him  for  nothing,  and  so 
prevent  him  from  getting  rid  of  his  money  in  the  worst 
of  all  possible  ways,  by  wasting  it  on  doctors'  bills.  In 
a  week  after  Morgan  had  arrived  at  these  conclusions,  he 


THE    QUEEN   OF    HEARTS.  9 

was  settled  at  The  Glen  Tower ;  and  from  that  time,  op- 
posite as  their  characters  were,  my  two  elder  brothers 
lived  together  in  their  lonely  retreat,  thoroughly  under- 
standing, and,  in  their  very  different  ways,  heartily  lov- 
ing one  another. 

Many  years  passed  before  I,  the  youngest  of  the  three 
— christened  by  the  unmelodious  name  of  Griffith — found 
my  way,  in  my  turn,  to  the  dreary  old  house,  and  the 
sheltering  quiet  of  the  Welsh  hills.  My  career  in  life 
had  led  me  away  from  my  brothers ;  and  even  now,  when 
we  are  all  united,  I  have  still  ties  and  interests  to  con- 
nect me  with  the  outer  world  which  neither  Owen  nor 
Morgan  possess. 

I  was  brought  up  to  the  Bar.  After  my  first  year's 
study  of  the  law,  I  wrearied  of  it,  and  strayed  aside  idly 
into  the  brighter  and  more  attractive  paths  of  literature. 
My  occasional  occupation  with  my  pen  was  varied  by 
long  traveling  excursions  in  all  parts  of  the  Continent ; 
year  by  year  my  circle  of  gay  friends  and  acquaintances 
increased,  and  I  bade  fair  to  sink  into  the  condition  of  a 
wandering  desultory  man,  Avithout  a  fixed  purpose  in  life 
of  any  sort,  when  I  was  saved  by  what  has  saved  many 
another  in  my  situation — an  attachment  to  a  good  and  a 
sensible  woman.  By  the  time  I  had  reached  the  age  of 
thirty-five,  I  had  done  what  neither  of  my  brothers  had 
done  before  me — I  had  married. 

As  a  single  man,  my  own  small  independence,  aided 
by  what  little  additions  to  it  I  could  pick  up  with  my 
pen,  had  been  sufficient  for  my  wants ;  but  with  marriage 
and  its  responsibilities  came  the  necessity  for  serious  ex- 
ertion. I  returned  to  my  neglected  studies,  and  grappled 
resolutely,  this  time,  with  the  intricate  difficulties  of  the 
law.  I  was  called  to  the  Bar.  My  wife's  father  aided 
me  with  his  interest,  and  I  started  into  practice  without 
difficulty  and  without  delay. 


10  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

For  the  next  twenty  years  my  married  life  was  a  scene 
of  "happiness  and  prosperity,  on  Avhich  I  now  look  back 
with  a  grateful  tenderness  that  no  words  of  mine  can  ex- 
press. The  memory  of  my  wife  is  busy  at  my  heart 
while  I  think  of  those  past  times.  The  forgotten  tears 
rise  in  my  eyes  again,  and  trouble  the  course  of  my  pen 
while  it  traces  these  simple  lines. 

Let  me  pass  rapidly  over  the  one  unspeakable  misery 
of  my  life ;  let  me  try  to  remember  now,  as  I  tried  to  re- 
member then,  that  she  lived  to  see  our  only  child — our 
son,  who  was  so  good  to  her,  who  is  still  so  good  to  me — * 
grow  up  to  manhood;  that  her  head  lay  on  my  bosom 
when  she  died ;  and  that  the  last  frail  movement  of  her 
hand  in  this  world  was  the  movement  that  brought  it 
closer  to  her  boy's  lips. 

I  bore  the  blow — with  God's  help  I  bore  it,  and  bear 
it  still.  But  it  struck  me  away  forever  from  my  hold  on 
social  life ;  from  the  purposes  and  pursuits,  the  compan- 
ions and  the  pleasures  of  twenty  years,  which  her  pres- 
ence had  sanctioned  and  made  dear  to  me.  If  my  son 
George  had  desired  to  follow  my  profession,  I  should 
still  have  struggled  against  myself,  and  have  kept  my 
place  in  the  world  until  I  had  seen  him  prosperous  and 
settled.  But  his  choice  led  him  to  the  army ;  and  before 
his  mothei''s  death  he  had  obtained  his  commission,  and 
had  entered  on  his  path  in  life.  No  other  responsibility 
remained  to  claim  from  me  the  sacrifice  of  myself;  my 
brothers  had  made  my  place  ready  for  me  by  their  fire- 
side ;  my  heart  yearned,  in  its  desolation,  for  the  friends 
and  companions  of  the  old  boyish  days ;  my  good,  brave 
son  promised  that  no  year  should  pass,  as  long  as  he  was 
in  England,  without  his  coming  to  cheer  me;  and  so  it 
happened  that  I,  in  my  turn,  withdrew  from  the  world, 
which  had  once  been  a  bright  and  a  happy  world  to  me, 
and  retired  to  end  my  days,  peacefully,  contentedly,  and 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  11 

gratefully,  as  my  brothers  are  ending  theirs,  in  the  soli- 
tude of  The  Glen  Tower. 

How  many  years  have  passed  since  we  have  all  three 
been  united  it  is  not  necessary  to  relate.  It  will  be  more 
to  the  purpose  if  I  briefly  record  that  we  have  never 
been  separated  since  the  day  which  first  saw  us  assem- 
bled together  in  our  hill-side  retreat ;  that  we  have  nev- 
er yet  wearied  of  the  time,  of  the  place,  or  of  ourselves ; 
and  that  the  influence  of  solitude  on  our  hearts  and 
minds  has  not  altered  them  for  the  worse,  for  it  has  not 
embittered  us  toward  our  fellow-creatures,  and  it  has  not 
dried  up  in  us  the  sources  from  which  harmless  occupa- 
tions and  innocent  pleasures  may  flow  refreshingly  to 
the  last  over  the  waste  places  of  human  life.  Thus 
much  for  our  own  story,  and  for  the  circumstances  which 
have  withdrawn  us  from  the  world  for  the  rest  of  our 
days. 

And  now  imagine  us  three  lonely  old  men,  tall  and 
lean,  and  white-headed ;  dressed,  more  from  past  habit 
than  from  present  association,  in  customary  suits  of  sol- 
emn black:  Brother  Owen,  yielding,  gentle,  and  affec- 
tionate in  look,  voice,  and  manner ;  brother  Morgan,  with 
a  quaint,  surface-sourness  of  address,  and  a  tone  of  dry 
sarcasm  in  his  talk,  which  single  him  out,  on  all  occasions, 
as  a  character  in  our  little  circle ;  brother  Griffith  form- 
ing the  link  between  his  two  elder  companions,  capable, 
at  one  time,  of  sympathizing  with  the  quiet,  thoughtful 
tone  of  Owen's  conversation,  and  ready,  at  another,  to 
exchange  brisk  severities  on  life  and  manners  with  Mor- 
gan— in  short,  a  pliable,  double-sided  old  lawyer,  who 
stands  between  the  clergyman-brother  and  the  physician- 
brother  with  an  ear  ready  for  each,  and  with  a  heart 
open  to  both,  share  and  share  together. 

Imagine  the  strange  old  building  in  which  we  live  to 
be  really  what  its  name  implies — a  tower  standing  in  a 


12  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

glen ;  in  past  times  the  fortress  of  a  fighting  Welsh 
chieftain ;  in  present  times  a  dreary  land-light-house, 
built  up  in  many  stories  of  two  rooms  each,  with  a  little 
modern  lean-to  of  cottage  form  tacked  on  quaintly  to 
one  of  its  sides ;  the  great  hill,  on  whose  lowest  slope  it 
stands,  rising  precipitously  behind  it ;  a  dark,  swift-flow- 
ing stream  in  the  valley  below ;  hills  on  hills  all  round, 
and  no  way  of  approach  but  by  one  of  the  loneliest  and 
wildest  cross-roads  in  all  South  Wales. 

Imagine  such  a  place  of  abode  as  this,  and  such  inhab- 
itants of  it  as  ourselves,  and  then  picture  the  descent 
among  us — as  of  a  goddess  dropping  from  the  clouds — 
of  a  lively,  handsome,  fashionable  young  lady — a  bright, 
gay,  butterfly  creature,  used  to  flutter  away  its  exist- 
ence in  the  broad  sunshine  of  perpetual  gayety — a  child 
of  the  new  generation,  with  all  the  modern  ideas  whirl- 
ing together  in  her  pretty  head,  and  all  the  modern  ac- 
complishments at  the  tips  of  her  delicate  fingers.  Imag- 
ine such  a  light-hearted  daughter  of  Eve  as  this,  the 
spoiled  darling  of  society,  the  charming  spendthrift  of 
Nature's  choicest  treasures  of  beauty  and  youth,  sud- 
denly flashing  into  the  dim  life  of  three  weary  old  men 
— suddenly  dropped  into  the  place,  of  all  others,  which 
is  least  fit  for  her — suddenly  shut  out  from  the  world  in 
the  lonely  quiet  of  the  loneliest  home  in  England.  Real- 
ize, if  it  be  possible,  all  that  is  most  whimsical  and  most 
anomalous  in  such  a  situation  as  this,  and  the  startling 
confession  contained  in  the  opening  sentence  of  these 
pages  will  no  longer  excite  the  faintest  emotion  of  sur- 
prise. "Who  can  wonder  now,  when  our  bright  young 
goddess  really  descended  on  us,  that  I  and  my  brothers 
were  ah1  three  at  our  wits'  end  what  to  do  with  her  1 


THE    QUEEN    OF    11EAKTS.  13 


CHAPTER  H. 

OUR    DILEMMA. 

WHO  is  the  young  lady  ?  And  how  did  she  find  her 
way  into  The  Glen  Tower  ? 

Her  name  (in  relation  to  which  I  shall  have  something 
more  to  say  a  little  farther  on)  is  Jessie  Yelverton.  She 
is  an  orphan  and  an  only  child.  Her  mother  died  while 
she  was  an  infant ;  her  father  was  my  dear  and  valued 
friend,  Major  Yelverton.  He  lived  long  enough  to  cele- 
brate his  darling's  seventh  birthday.  When  he  died  he 
intrusted  his  authority  over  her  and  his  responsibility 
toward  her  to  his  brother  and  to  me. 

When  I  was  summoned  to  tlic  reading  of  the  major's 
will,  I  knew  perfectly  well  that  I  should  hear  myself  ap- 
pointed guardian  and  executor  with  his  brother;  and  I 
had  been  also  made  acquainted  with  my  lost  friend's 
Avishes  as  to  his  daughter's  education,  and  with  his  in 
tentions  as  to  the  disposal  of  all  his  property  in  her 
favor.  My  own  idea,  therefore,  was,  that  the  reading  of 
the  will  would  inform  me  of  nothing  which  I  had  not 
known  in  the  testator's  lifetime.  When  the  day  came 
for  hearing  it,  however,  I  found  that  I  had  been  over 
hasty  in  arriving  at  this  conclusion.  Toward  the  end 
of  the  document  there  was  a  clause  inserted  which  took 
me  entirely  by  surprise. 

After  providing  for  the  education  of  Miss  Yelverton 
under  the  direction  of  her  guardians,  and  for  her  resi- 
dence, under  ordinary  circumstances,  with  the  major's 
sister,  Lady  Westwick,  the  clause  concluded  by  saddling 
the  child's  future  inheritance  with  this  curious  condi- 
tion: 


14  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

From  the  period  of  her  leaving  school  to  the  period 
of  her  reaching  the  age  of  twenty-one  years,  Miss  Yel« 
verton  was  to  pass  not  less  than  six  consecutive  weeks 
out  of  every  year  under  the  roof  of  one  of  her  two 
guardians.  During  the  lives  of  both  of  them,  it  was  left 
to  her  own  choice  to  say  which  of  the  two  she  would 
prefer  to  live  with.  In  all  other  respects  the  condition 
w;is  imperative.  If  she  forfeited  it,  excepting,  of  course, 
the  case  of  the  deaths  of  both  her  guardians,  she  was 
only  to  have  a  life-interest  in  the  property ;  if  she  obey- 
ed it,  the  money  itself  was  to  become  her  own  posses- 
sion on  the  day  when  she  completed  her  twenty-first 
year. 

This  clause  in  the  will,  as  I  have  said,  took  me  at  first, 
by  surprise.  I  remembered  how  devotedly  Lady  West- 
wick  had  soothed  her  sister-in-law's  death-bed  sufferings, 
and  how  tenderly  she  had  afterward  watched  over  the 
welfare  of  the  little  motherless  child — I  remembered  the 
innumerable  claims  she  had  established  in  this  way  on 
her  brother's  confidence  in  her  affection  for  his  orphan 
daughter,  and  I  was,  therefore,  naturally  amazed  at  the 
appearance  of  a  condition  in  his  will  which  seemed  to 
show  a  positive  distrust  of  Lady  Westwick's  undivided 
influence  over  the  character  and  conduct  of  her  niece. 

A  few  words  from  my  fellow-guardian,  Mr.  Richard 
Yelverton,  and  a  little  after-consideration  of  some  of  my 
deceased  friend's  peculiarities  of  disposition  and  feeling, 
to  which  I  had  not  hitherto  attached  sufficient  import* 
ance,  were  enough  to  make  me  understand  the  motives 
by  which  he  had  been  influenced  in  providing  for  the  fu- 
ture of  his  child. 

Major  Yelverton  had  raised  himself  to  a  position  of 
affluence  and  eminence  from  a  very  humble  origin.  He 
was  the  son  of  a  small  farmer,  and  it  was  his  pride  never 
to  forget  this  circumstance,  never  to  be  ashamed  of  it, 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  15 

and  never  to  allow  the  prejudices  of  society  to  influence 
his  own  settled  opinions  on  social  questions  in  general. 

Acting,  in  all  that  related  to  his  intercourse  with  the 
world,  on  such  principles  as  these,  the  major,  it  is  hardly 
necessary  to  say,  held  some  strangely  heterodox  opinions 
on  the  modern  education  of  girls,  and  on  the  evil  influ- 
ence of  society  over  the  characters  of  women  in  general. 
Out  of  the  strength  of  those  opinions,  and  out  of  the  cer- 
tainty of  his  conviction  that  his  sister  did  not  share  them, 
had  grown  that  condition  in  his  will  which  removed  his 
daughter  from  the  influence  of  her  aunt  for  six  consecu- 
tive weeks  in  every  year.  Lady  West  wick  was  the  most 
light-hearted,  the  most  generous,  the  most  impulsive  of 
women ;  capable,  when  any  serious  occasion  called  it 
forth,  of  all  that  was  devoted  and  self-sacrificing,  but,  at 
other  and  ordinary  times,  constitutionally  restless,  frivo- 
lous, and  eager  for  perpetual  gayety.  Distrusting  the 
sort  of  life  which  he  knew  his  daughter  would  lead  un- 
der her  aunt's  roof,  and  at  the  same  time  gratefully  re- 
membering his  sister's  affectionate  devotion  toward  his 
dying  wife  and  her  helpless  infant,  Major  Yelverton  had 
attempted  to  make  a  compromise,  which,  while  it  allow- 
ed Lady  Westwick  the  close  domestic  intercourse  with 
her  niece  that  she  had  earned  by  innumerable  kind  of- 
fices, should,  at  the  same  time,  place  the  young  girl  for  a 
fixed  period  of  every  year  of  her  minority  under  the  cor- 
rective care  of  two  such  quiet  old-fashioned  guardians  as 
his  brother  and  myself.  Such  is  the  history  of  the  clause 
in  the  will.  My  friend  little  thought,  when  he  dictated 
it,  of  the  extraordinary  result  to  which  it  was  one  day  to 
lead. 

For  some  years,  however,  events  ran  on  smoothly 
enough.  Little  Jessie  was  sent  to  an  excellent  school, 
with  strict  instructions  to  the  mistress  to  make  a  good 
girl  of  her,  and  not  a  fashionable  young  lady.  Although 


16  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

she  was  reported  to  be  any  thing  but  a  pattern  pupil  in 
respect  of  attention  to  her  lessons,  she  became  from  the 
first  the  chosen  favorite  of  every  one  about  her.  The 
very  offenses  which  she  committed  against  the  discipline 
of  the  school  were  of  the  sort  which  provoke  a  smile 
even  on  the  stern  countenance  of  authority  itself.  One 
of  these  quaint  freaks  of  mischief  may  not  inappropriate- 
ly be  mentioned  here,  inasmuch  as  it  gained  her  the  pret- 
ty nickname  under  which  she  will  be  found  to  appear  oc- 
casionally in  these  pages. 

On  a  certain  autumn  night  shortly  after  the  Midsum- 
mer vacation,  the  mistress  of  the  school  fancied  she  saw 
a  light  under  the  door  of  the  bedroom  occupied  by  Jes- 
sie and  three  other  girls.  It  was  then  close  on  midnight ; 
and,  fearing  that  some  case  of  sudden  illness  might  have 
happened,  she  hastened  into  the  room.  On  opening  the 
door,  she  discovered,  to  her  horror  and  amazement,  that 
all  four  girls  were  out  of  bed — were  dressed  in  brilliant- 
ly-fantastic costumes,  representing  the  four  grotesque 
"  Queens"  of  Hearts,  Diamonds,  Spades,  and  Clubs,  fa- 
miliar to  us  all  on  the  pack  of  cards — and  were  dancing 
a  quadrille,  in  which  Jessie  sustained  the  character  of 
The  Queen  of  Hearts.  The  next  morning's  investiga- 
tion disclosed  that  Miss  Yelverton  had  smuggled  the 
dresses  into  the  school,  and  had  amused  herself  by  giving 
an  impromptu  fancy  ball  to  her  companions,  in  imitation 
of  an  entertainment  of  the  same  kind  at  which  she  had 
figured  in  a  "  court-card"  quadrille  at  her  aunt's  country 
house. 

The  dresses  were  instantly  confiscated,  and  the  neces- 
sary punishment  promptly  administered ;  but  the  remem- 
brance of  Jessie's  extraordinary  outrage  on  bedroom  dis- 
cipline lasted  long  enough  to  become  one  of  the  tradi- 
tions of  the  school,  and  she  and  her  sister-culprits  were 
thenceforth  hailed  as  the  "  queens"  of  the  four  "  suites"  by 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  17 

their  class-companions  whenever  the  mistress's  back  was 
turned.  Whatever  might  have  become  of  the  nicknames 
thus  employed  in  relation  to  the  other  three  girls,  such  a 
mock  title  as  The  Queen  of  Hearts  was  too  appropriate- 
ly descriptive  of  the  natural  charm  of  Jessie's  character, 
as  well  as  of  the  adventure  in  which  she  had  taken  the 
lead,  not  to  rise  naturally  to  the  lips  of  every  one  who 
knew  her.  It  followed  her  to  her  aunt's  house — it  came 
to  be  as  habitually  and  familiarly  connected  writh  her, 
among  her  friends  of  all  ages,  as  if  it  had  been  formally 
inscribed  on  her  baptismal  register ;  and  it  has  stolen  its 
way  into  these  pages  because  it  falls  from  my  pen  natu- 
rally and  inevitably,  exactly  as  it  often  falls  from  my  lips 
in  real  life. 

When  Jessie  left  school  the  first  difficulty  presented 
itself — in  other  words,  the  necessity  arose  of  fulfilling 
the  conditions  of  the  will.  At  that  time  I  was  already 
settled  at  The  Glen  Tower,  and  her  living  six  \veeks  in 
our  dismal  solitude  and  our  humdrum  society  was,  as  she 
herself  frankly  wrote  me  word,  quite  out  of  the  question. 
Fortunately,  she  had  always  got  on  well  with  her  uncle 
and  his  family ;  so  she  exerted  her  liberty  of  choice,  and, 
much  to  her  own  relief  and  to  mine  also,  passed  her  reg' 
ular  six  weeks  of  probation,  year  after  year,  under  Mr. 
Richard  Yelverton's  roof. 

During  this  period  I  heard  of  her  regularly,  some- 
times from  my  fellow-guardian,  sometimes  from  my  son 
George,  who,  whenever  his  military  duties  allowed  him 
the  opportunity,  contrived  to  see  her,  now  at  her  aunt's 
house,  and  now  at  Mr.  Yelverton's.  The  particulars  of 
her  character  and  conduct,  which  I  gleaned  in  this  way, 
more  than  sufficed  to  convince  me  that  the  poor  major's 
plan  for  the  careful  training  of  his  daughter's  disposi- 
tion, though  plausible  enough  in  theory,  was  little  better 
than  a  total  failure  in  practice.  Miss  Jessie,  to  use  the 


18  THE    QUEEN    OF   HEAKTS. 

expressive  common  phrase,  took  after  her  aunt.  She 
was  as  generous,  as  impulsive,  as  light-hearted,  as  fond 
of  change,  and  gayety,  and  fine  clothes — in  short,  as 
complete  and  genuine  a  woman  as  Lady  Westwick  her- 
self. It  was  impossible  to  reform  the  "  Queen  of  Hearts," 
and  equally  impossible  not  to  love  her.  Such,  in  few 
words,  was  my  fellow-guardian's  report  of  his  experience 
of  our  handsome  young  ward. 

So  the  time  passed  till  the  year  came  of  which  I  am 
now  writing — the  ever-memorable  year,  to  England,  of 
the  Russian  war.  It  happened  that  I  had  heard  less 
than  usual  at  this  period,  and  indeed  for  many  months 
before  it,  of  Jessie  and  her  proceedings.  My  son  had 
been  ordered  out  with  his  regiment  to  the  Crimea  in 
1854,  and  had  other  work  in  hand  now  than  recording 
the  sayings  and  doings  of  a  young  lady.  Mr.  Richard 
Yelverton,  who  had  been  hitherto  used  to  write  to  me 
with  tolerable  regularity,  seemed  now,  for  some  reason 
that  I  could  not  conjecture,  to  have  forgotten  my  exist- 
ence. Ultimately  I  was  reminded  of  my  ward  by  one 
of  George's  own  letters,  in  which  he  asked  for  news  of 
her ;  and  I  wrote  at  once  to  Mr.  Yelverton.  The  answer 
that  reached  me  was  written  by  his  wife :  he  was  dan- 
gerously ill.  The  next  letter  that  came  informed  me  of 
his  death.  This  happened  early  in  the  spring  of  the 
year  1855. 

I  am  ashamed  to  confess  it,  but  the  change  in  my  own 
position  was  the  first  idea  that  crossed  my  mind  when  I 
read  the  news  of  Mr.  Yelverton's  death.  I  was  now  left 
sole  guardian,  and  Jessie  Yelverton  wanted  a  year  still 
of  coming  of  age. 

By  the  next  day's  post  I  wrote  to  her  about  the  alter- 
ed state  of  the  relations  between  us.  She  was  then  on 
the  Continent  with  her  aunt,  having  gone  abroad  at  the 
very  beginning  of  the  year.  Consequently,  so  far  as 


THE   QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  10 

eighteen  hundred  and  fifty-five  was  concerned,  the  con- 
dition exacted  by  the  will  yet  remained  to  be  performed. 
She  had  still  six  weeks  to  pass — her  last  six  weeks,  see- 
ing that  she  was  now  twenty  years  old — under  the  roof 
of  one  of  her  guardians,  and  I  was  now  the  only  guardian 
left. 

In  due  course  of  time  I  received  my  answer,  written 
on  rose-colored  paper,  and  expressed  throughout  in  a 
tone  of  light,  easy,  feminine  banter,  which  amused  me  in 
spite  of  myself.  Miss  Jessie,  according  to  her  own  ac- 
count, was  hesitating,  on  receipt  of  my  letter,  between 
two  alternatives — the  one,  of  allowing  herself  to  be  bur- 
ied six  weeks  in  The  Glen  Tower ;  the  other,  of  breaking 
the  condition,  giving  up  the  money,  and  remaining  mag- 
nanimously contented  with  nothing  but  a  life-interest  in 
her  father's  property.  At  present  she  inclined  decidedly 
toward  giving  up  the  money,  and  escaping  the  clutches 
of  "  the  three  horrid  old  men ;"  but  she  would  let  me 
know  again  if  she  happened  to  change  her  mind.  And 
so,  with  best  love,  she  would  beg  to  remain  always  af- 
fectionately mine,  as  long  as  she  was  well  out  of  my 
reach. 

The  summer  passed,  the  autumn  came,  and  I  never 
heard  from  her  again.  Under  ordinary  circumstances, 
this  long  silence  might  have  made  me  feel  a  little  un- 
easy. But  news  reached  me  about  this  time  from  the 
Crimea  that  my  son  was  wounded — not  dangerously, 
thank  God,  but  still  severely  enough  to  be  laid  up — and 
all  my  anxieties  were  now  centred  in  that  direction.  By 
the  beginning  of  September,  however,  I  got  better  ac- 
counts of  him,  and  my  mind  was  made  easy  enough  to 
let  me  think  of  Jessie  again.  Just  as  I  was  considering 
the  necessity  of  writing  once  more  to  my  refractory 
ward,  a  second  letter  arrived  from  her.  She  had  re- 
turned at  last  from  abroad,  had  suddenly  changed  her 


20  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

mind,  suddenly  grown  sick  of  society,  suddenly  become 
enamored  of  the  pleasures  of  retirement,  and  suddenly 
found  out  that  the  three  horrid  old  men  were  three  dear 
old  men,  and  that  six  weeks'  solitude  at  The  Glen  Tower 
was  the  luxury,  of  all  others,  that  she  languished  for 
most.  As  a  necessary  result  of  this  altered  state  of 
things,  she  would  therefore  now  propose  to  spend  her 
allotted  six  weeks  with  her  guardian.  We  might  cer- 
tainly expect  her  on  the  twentieth  of  September,  and  she 
would  take  the  greatest  care  to  fit  herself  for  our  society 
by  arriving  in  the  lowest  possible  spirits,  and  bringing 
her  own  sackcloth  and  ashes  along  with  her. 

The  first  ordeal  to  which  this  alarming  letter  forced 
me  to  submit  was  the  breaking  of  the  news  it  contained 
to  my  two  brothers.  The  disclosure  affected  them  very 
differently.  Poor  dear  Owen  merely  turned  pale,  lifted 
his  weak,  thin  hands  in  a  panic-stricken  manner,  and  then 
sat  staring  at  me  in  speechless  and  motionless  bewilder- 
ment. Morgan  stood  up  straight  before  me,  plunged 
both  his  hands  into  his  pockets,  burst  suddenly  into  the 
harshest  laugh  I  ever  heard  from  his  lips,  and  told  me, 
with  an  air  of  triumph,  that  it  was  exactly  what  he  ex- 
pected. 

"What  you  expected?"  I  repeated  in  astonishment. 

"  Yes,"  returned  Morgan,  with  his  bitterest  emphasis. 
"  It  doesn't  surprise  me  in  the  least.  It's  the  way  things 
go  in  this  world — it's  the  regular  moral  see-saw  of  good 
and  evil — the  old  story  with  the  old  end  to  it.  They 
were  too  happy  in  the  garden  of  Eden — down  comes  the 
serpent,  and  turns  them  out.  Solomon  was  too  wise — 
down  comes  the  Queen  of  Sheba,  and  makes  a  fool  of 
him.  We've  been  too  comfortable  at  The  Glen  Tower 
— down  comes  a  woman,  and  sets  us  all  three  by  the 
ears  together.  All  I  wonder  at  is  that  it  hasn't  happen- 
ed before."  With  those  words  Morgan  resignedly  took 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  21 

out  his  pipe,  put  on  his  old  felt  hat,  and  turned  to  the 
door. 

"  You're  not  going  away  before  she  comes  ?"  exclaim- 
ed Owen,  piteously.  "  Don't  leave  us — please  don't  leave 
us!" 

"  Going !"  cried  Morgan,  with  great  contempt.  "  What 
should  I  gain  by  that  ?  When  destiny  has  found  a  man 
out,  and  heated  his  gridiron  for  him,  he  has  nothing  left 
to  do,  that  I  know  of,  but  to  get  up  and  sit  on  it." 

I  opened  my  lips  to  protest  against  the  implied  com- 
parison between  a  young  lady  and  a  hot  gridiron,  but, 
before  I  could  speak,  Morgan  was  gone. 

"  Well,"  I  said  to  Owen,  "  we  must  make  the  best  of 
it.  We  must  brush  up  our  manners,  and  set  the  house 
tidy,  and  amuse  her  as  well  as  we  can.  The  difficulty  is 
where  to  put  her ;  and,  when  that  is  settled,  the  next  puz- 
zle will  be,  what  to  order  in  to  make  her  comfortable. 
It's  a  hard  thing,  brother,  to  say  what  will  or  what  will 
not  please  a  young  lady's  taste." 

Owen  looked  absently  at  me,  in  greater  bewilderment 
than  ever — opened  his  eyes  in  perplexed  consideration — 
repeated  to  himself  slowly  the  word  "  tastes" — and  then 
helped  me  with  this  suggestion  : 

"  Hadn't  we  better  begin,  Griffith,  by  getting  her  a 
plum-cake  ?" 

"  My  dear  Owen,"  I  remonstrated,  "  it  is  a  grown  young 
woman  who  is  coming  to  see  us,  not  a  little  girl  from 
school." 

"  Oh !"  said  Owen,  more  confused  than  before.  "  Yes 
— I  see ;  we  couldn't  do  wrong,  I  suppose — could  we  ? — 
if  we  got  her  a  little  dog,  and  a  lot  of  new  gowns." 

There  was,  evidently,  no  more  help  in  the  way  of  ad- 
vice to  be  expected  from  Owen  than  from  Morgan  him- 
self. As  I  came  to  that  conclusion,  I  saw  through  the 

'  ~ 

window  our  old  housekeeper  on  her  way,  with  her  bask- 


22  THE   QTTEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

et,  to  the  kitchen-garden,  and  left  the  room  to  ascertain 
if  she  could  assist  us. 

To  my  great  dismay,  the  housekeeper  took  even  a 
more  gloomy  view  than  Morgan  of  the  approaching 
event.  When  I  had  explained  all  the  circumstances  to 
her,  she  carefully  put  down  her  basket,  crossed  her  arms, 
and  said  to  me  in  slow,  deliberate,  mysterious  tones, 

"  You  want  my  advice  about  what's  to  be  done  with 
this  young  woman  ?  Well,  sir,  here's  my  advice :  Don't 
you  trouble  your  head  about  her.  It  won't  be  no  use. 
Mind,  I  tell  you,  it  won't  be  no  use." 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?" 

"  You  look  at  this  place,  sir — it's  more  like  a  prison 
than  a  house,  isn't  it?  You  look  at  us  as  lives  in  it. 
We've  got  (saving  your  presence)  a  foot  apiece  in  our 
graves,  haven't  we?  When  you  was  young  yourself, 
sir,  what  would  you  have  done  if  they  had  shut  you  up 
for  six  weeks  in  such  a  place  as  this,  among  your  grand- 
lathers  and  grandmothers,  with  their  feet  in  the  grave  ?" 

"  I  really  can't  say." 

"  I  can,  sir.  You'd  have  run  away.  She'll  run  away. 
Don't  you  worry  your  head  about  her — she'll  save  you 
the  trouble.  I  tell  you  again  she'll  run  away." 

With  those  ominous  words  the  housekeeper  took  up 
her  basket,  sighed  heavily,  and  left  me. 

I  sat  down  under  a  tree  quite  helpless.  Here  was  the 
whole  responsibility  shifted  upon  my  miserable  shoulders. 
Not  a  lady  in  the  neighborhood  to  whom  I  could  apply 
for  assistance,  and  the  nearest  shop  eight  miles  distant 
from  us.  The  toughest  case  I  ever  had  to  conduct,  when 
I  was  at  the  Bar,  was  plain  sailing  compared  with  the 
difficulty  of  receiving  our  fair  guest. 

It  was  absolutely  necessary,  however,  to  decide  at  once 
where  she  was  to  sleep.  All  the  rooms  in  the  tower 
were  of  stone — dark,  gloomy,  and  cold  even  in  the  sum- 


THE   QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  23 

raer-time.  Impossible  to  put  her  in  any  one  of  them. 
The  only  other  alternative  was  to  lodge  her  in  the  little 
modern  lean-to,  which  I  have  already  described  as  being 
tacked  on  to  the  side  of  the  old  building.  It  contained 
three  cottage-rooms,  and  they  might  be  made  barely  hab- 
itable for  a  young  lady.  But  then  those  rooms  were  oc- 
cupied by  Morgan.  His  books  were  in  one,  his  bed  was 
in  another,  his  pipes  and  general  lumber  were  in  the  third. 
Could  I  expect  him,  after  the  sour  similitudes  he  had  used 
in  reference  to  our  expected  visitor,  to  turn  out  of  his 
habitation  and  disarrange  all  his  habits  for  her  conven- 
ience ?  The  bare  idea  of  proposing  the  thing  to  him 
seemed  ridiculous ;  and  yet  inexorable  necessity  left  me 
no  choice  but  to  make  the  hopeless  experiment.  I  walk- 
ed back  to  the  tower  hastily  and  desperately,  to  face  the 
worst  that  might  happen  before  my  courage  cooled  alto- 
gether. 

On  crossing  the  threshold  of  the  hall  door  I  was  stop- 
ped, to  my  great  amazement,  by  a  procession  of  three  of 
the  farm-servants,  followed  by  Morgan,  all  walking  after 
each  other,  in  Indian  file,  toward  the  spiral  staircase  that 
led  to  the  top  of  the  tower.  The  first  of  the  servants 
carried  the  materials  for  making  a  fire ;  the  second  bore 
an  inverted  arm-chair  on  his  head;  the  third  tottered 
under  a  heavy  load  of  books  ;  while  Morgan  came  last, 
with  his  canister  of  tobacco  in  his  hand,  his  dressing  gown 
over  his  shoulders,  and  his  whole  collection  of  pipes  hug- 
ged up  together  in  a  bundle  under  his  arm. 

"  What  on  earth  does  this  mean  ?"  I  inquired. 

"It  means  taking  Time  by  the  forelock,"  answered 
Morgan,  looking  at  me  with  a  smile  of  sour  satisfaction. 
"  I've  got  the  start  of  your  young  woman,  Griffith,  and 
I'm  making  the  most  of  it." 

"  But  where,  in  Heaven's  name,  are  you  going  ?"  I 
asked,  as  the  head  man  of  the  procession  disappeared 
with  his  firing  up  the  staircase. 

2 


24  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

"  How  high  is  this  tower  ?"  retorted  Morgan. 

"  Seven  stories,  to  be  sure,"  I  replied. 

"  Very  good,"  said  my  eccentric  brother,  setting  his 
foot  on  the  first  stair,  "  I'm  going  up  to  the  seventh." 

"  You  can't,"  I  shouted. 

"  She  can't,  you  mean,"  said  Morgan,  "  and  that's  ex- 
actly why  I'm  going  there." 

"  But  the  room  is  not  furnished." 

"  It's  out  of  her  reach." 

"  One  of  the  windows  has  fallen  to  pieces." 

"  It's  out  of  her  reach." 

"  There's  a  crow's  nest  hi  the  corner." 

"  It's  out  of  her  reach." 

By  the  time  this  unanswerable  argument  had  attained 
its  third  repetition,  Morgan,  in  his  turn,  had  disappeared 
up  the  winding  stairs.  I  knew  him  too  well  to  attempt 
any  farther  protest. 

Here  was  my  first  difficulty  smoothed  away  most  un- 
expectedly, for  here  were  the  rooms  in  the  lean-to  placed 
by  their  owner's  free  act  and  deed  at  my  disposal.  I 
wrote  on  the  spot  to  the  one  upholsterer  of  our  distant 
county  town  to  come  immediately  and  survey  the  prem- 
ises, and  sent  off  a  mounted  messenger  with  the  letter. 
This  done,  and  the  necessary  order  also  dispatched  to 
the  carpenter  and  glazier  to  set  them  at  work  on  Mor- 
gan's sky-parlor  in  the  seventh  story,  I  began  to  feel,  for 
the  first  time,  as  if  my  scattered  wits  were  coming  back 
to  me.  By  the  time  the  evening  had  closed  in  I  had  hit 
on  no  less  than  three  excellent  ideas,  all  providing  for  the 
future  comfort  and  amusement  of  our  fair  guest.  The 
first  idea  was  to  get  her  a  Welsh  pony ;  the  second  was 
to  hire  a  piano  from  the  county  town ;  the  third  was  to 
»end  for  a  boxful  of  novels  from  London.  I  must  con- 
fess I  thought  these  projects  for  pleasing  her  very  happi- 
ly conceived,  and  Owen  agreed  with  me.  Morgan,  as 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  25 

usual,  took  the  opposite  view.  He  said  she  would  yawn 
over  the  novels,  turn  up  her  nose  at  the  piano,  and  frac- 
ture her  skull  with  the  pony.  As  for  the  housekeeper, 
she  stuck  to  her  text  as  stoutly  in  the  evening  as  she  had 
stuck  to  it  in  the  morning.  u  Planner  or  no  planner, 
story-book  or  no  story-book,  pony  or  no  pony,  you  mark 
my  words,  sir — that  young  woman  will  run  away." 

Such  were  the  housekeeper's  parting  words  when  she 
wished  me  good-night. 

When  the  next  morning  came,  and  brought  with  it 
that  terrible  waking  time  which  sets  a  man's  hopes  and 
projects  before  him,  the  great  as  well  as  the  small,  strip- 
ped bare  of  every  illusion,  it  is  not  to  be  concealed  that 
I  felt  less  sanguine  of  our  success  in  entertaining  the 
coming  guest.  So  far  as  external  preparations  were  con- 
cerned, there  seemed,  indeed,  but  little  to  improve ;  but, 
apart  from  these,  what  had  we  to  offer,  in  ourselves  and 
our  society,  to  attract  her  ?  There  lay  the  knotty  point 
of  the  question,  and  there  the  grand  difficulty  of  finding 
an  answer. 

I  fall  into  serious  reflection  while  I  am  dressing  on  the 
pursuits  and  occupations  with  whicli  we  three  brothers 
have  been  accustomed,  for  years  past,  to  beguile  the 
time.  Are  they  at  nil  likely,  in  the  case  of  any  one  of 
us,  to  interest  or  amuse  her  ? 

My  chief  occupation,  to  begin  with  the  youngest,  con- 
sists in  acting  as  steward  on  Owen's  property.  The  rou- 
tine of  my  duties  has  never  lost  its  sober  attraction  to 
my  tastes,  for  it  has  always  employed  me  in  watching 
the  best  interests  of  my  brother,  and  of  my  son  also,  who 
is  one  day  to  be  his  heir.  But  can  I  expect  our  fair 
guest  to  sympathize  with  such  family  concerns  as  these  ? 
Clearly  not. 

Morgan's  pursuit  comes  next  in  order  of  review— a 
pursuit  of  a  far  more  ambitious  nature  than  mine.  It 


26  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

was  always  part  of  my  second  brother's  whimsical,  self- 
contradictory  character  to  view  with  the  profoundest 
contempt  the  learned  profession  by  which  he  gained  his 
livelihood,  and  he  is  now  occupying  the  long  leisure 
hours  of  his  old  age  in  composing  a  voluminous  treatise, 
intended,  one  of  these  days,  to  eject  the  whole  body  cor- 
porate of  doctors  from  the  position  which  they  have 
usurped  in  the  estimation  of  their  fellow-creatures.  This 
daring  work  is  entitled  "An  Examination  of  the  Claims 
of  Medicine  on  the  Gratitude  of  Mankind.  Decided  in 
the  Negative  by  a  retired  Physician."  So  far  as  I  can 
tell,  the  book  is  likely  to  extend  to  the  dimensions  of  an 
Encyclopaedia ;  for  it  is  Morgan's  plan  to  treat  his  com- 
prehensive subject  principally  from  the  historical  point 
of  view,  and  to  run  down  all  the  doctors  of  antiquity, 
one  after  another,  in  regular  succession,  from  the  first  of 
the  tribe.  When  I  last  heard  of  his  progress  he  was 
hard  on  the  heels  of  Hippocrates,  but  had  no  immediate 
prospect  of  tripping  up  his  successor.  Is  this  the  sort 
of  occupation  (I  ask  myself)  in  which  a  modern  young 
lady  is  likely  to  feel  the  slightest  interest  ?  Once  again, 
clearly  not. 

Owen's  favorite  employment  is,  in  its  way,  quite  as 
characteristic  as  Morgan's,  and  it  has  the  great  addition- 
al advantage  of  appealing  to  a  much  larger  variety  of 
tastes.  My  eldest  brother — great  at  drawing  and  paint- 
ing when  he  was  a  lad,  always  interested  in  artists  and 
their  works  in  after  life — has  resumed,  in  his  declining 
years,  the  holiday  occupation  of  his  schoolboy  days.  As 
an  amateur  landscape-painter,  he  works  with  more  satis- 
faction to  himself,  uses  more  color,  wears  out  more 
brushes,  and  makes  a  greater  smell  of  paint  in  his  studio 
than  any  artist  by  profession,  native  or  foreign,  whom  I 
ever  met  with.  In  look,  in  manner,  and  in  disposition, 
the  gentlest  of  mankind,  Owen,  by  some  singular  anom- 


THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS.  27 

aly  in  his  character,  which  he  seems  to  have  caught 
from  Morgan,  glories  placidly  in  the  wildest  and  most 
frightful  range  of  subjects  which  his  art  is  capable  of 
representing.  Immeasurable  ruins,  in  howling  wilder- 
nesses, with  blood-red  sunsets  gleaming  over  them ; 
thunder-clouds  rent  with  lightning,  hovering  over  split- 
ting trees  on  the  verges  of  awful  precipices;  hurricanes, 
shipwrecks,  waves,  and  whirlpools  follow  each  other  on 
his  canvas,  without  an  intervening  glimpse  of  quiet  ev- 
ery-day  nature  to  relieve  the  succession  of  pictorial  hor- 
rors. When  I  see  him  at  his  easd,  so  neat  and  quiet, 
so  unpretending  and  modest  in  himself,  with  such  a  com- 
posed expression  on  his  attentive  face,  with  such  a  weak 
white  hand  to  guide  such  bold,  big  brushes,  and  when  I 
look  at  the  frightful  canvasful  of  terrors  which  he  is 
serenely  aggravating  in  fierceness  and  intensity  with  ev- 
ery successive  touch,  I  find  it  difficult  to  realize  the  con- 
nection between  my  brother  and  his  work,  though  I  see 
them  before  me  not  six  inches  apart.  Will  this  quaint 
spectacle  possess  any  humorous  attractions  for  Miss  Jes- 
sie ?  Perhaps  it  may.  There  is  some  slight  chance  that 
Owen's  employment  will  be  lucky  enough  to  interest  her. 

Thus  far  my  morning  cogitations  advance  doubtfully 
enough,  but  they  altogether  fail  in  carrying  me  beyond 
the  narrow  circle  of  The  Glen  Tower.  I  try  hard,  in  our 
visitor's  interest,  to  look  into  the  resources  of  the  little 
world  around  us,  and  I  find  my  eiforts  rewarded  by  the 
prospect  of  a  total  blank. 

Is  there  any  presentable  living  soul  in  the  neighbor, 
hood  whom  we  can  invite  to  meet  her?  Not  one. 
There  are,  as  I  have  already  said,  no  country  seats  near 
us ;  and  society  in  the  county  town  has  long  since  learn- 
ed to  regard  us  as  three  misanthropes,  strongly  suspect- 
ed, from  our  monastic  way  of  life  and  our  dismal  black 
costume,  of  being  popish  priests  in  disguise.  In  other 


28  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

parts  of  England  the  clergyman  of  the  parish  might  help 
us  out  of  our  difficulty ;  but  here,  in  South  Wales,  and 
in  this  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth  century,  we  have  the 
old  type-parson  of  the  days  of  Fielding  still  in  a  state  of 
perfect  preservation.  Our  local  clergyman  receives  a 
stipend  which  is  too  paltry  to  bear  comparison  with  the 
wages  of  an  ordinary  mechanic.  In  dress,  manners,  and 
tastes  he  is  about  on  a  level  with  the  upper  class  of  agri- 
cultural laborer.  When  attempts  have  been  made  by 
well-meaning  gentlefolks  to  recognize  the  claims  of  his 
profession  by  asking  him  to  their  houses,  he  has  been 
known,  on  more  than  one  occasion,  to  leave  his  plow- 
man's pair  of  shoes  in  the  hall,  and  to  enter  the  drawing- 
room  respectfully  in  his  stockings.  Where  he  preaches, 
miles  and  miles  away  from  us  and  from  the  poor  cottage 
in  which  he  lives,  if  he  sees  any  of  the  company  in  the 
squire's  pew  yawn  or  fidget  in  their  places,  he  takes  it 
as  a  hint  that  they  are  tired  of  listening,  and  closes  his 
sermon  instantly  at  the  end  of  the  sentence.  Can  we 
ask  this  most  irreverend  and  unclerical  of  men  to  meet  a 
young  lady  ?  I  doubt,  even  if  we  made  the  attempt, 
whether  we  should  succeed,  by  fair  means,  in  getting  him 
beyond  the  servants'  hall. 

Dismissing,  therefore,  all  idea  of  inviting  visitors  to  en- 
tertain our  guest,  and  feeling,  at  the  same  time,  more 
than  doubtful  of  her  chance  of  discovering  any  attrac- 
tion in  the  sober  society  of  the  inmates  of  the  house,  I 
finish  my  dressing  and  go  down  to  breakfast,  secretly 
veering  round  to  the  housekeeper's  opinion  that  Miss 
Jessie  will  really  brng  matters  to  an  abrupt  conclusion 
by  running  away.  I  find  Morgan  as  bitterly  resigned  to 
his  destiny  as  ever,  and  Owen  so  affectionately  anxious 
to  make  himself  of  some  use,  and  so  lamentably  ignorant 
of  how  to  begin,  that  I  am  driven  to  disembarrass  my- 
?elf  of  him  at  the  outset  by  a  stratagem, 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  29 

I  suggest  to  him  that  our  visitor  is  sure  to  be  interest- 
ed iu  pictures,  and  that  it  would  be  a  pretty  attention, 
on  his  part,  to  paint  her  a  landscape  to  hang  up  in  her 
room.  Owen  brightens  directly,  informs  me  in  his  soft- 
est tones  that  he  is  then  at  work  on  the  Earthquake  at 
Lisbon,  and  inquires  whether  I  think  she  would  like  that 
subject.  I  preserve  my  gravity  sufficiently  to  answer  in 
the  affirmative,  and  my  brother  retires  meekly  to  his 
studio,  to  depict  the  ingulfing  of  a  city  and  the  destruc- 
tion of  a  population.  Morgan  withdraws  in  his  turn  to 
the  top  of  the  tower,  threatening,  Avhen  our  guest  comes, 
to  draw  all  his  meals  up  to  his  new  residence  by  means 
of  a  basket  and  string.  I  am  left  alone  for  an  hour,  and 
then  the  upholsterer  arrives  from  the  county  town. 

This  worthy  man,  on  being  informed  of  our  emer- 
gency, sees  his  way,  apparently,  to  a  good  stroke  of  busi- 
ness, and  thereupon  wins  my  lasting  gratitude  by  taking, 
in  opposition  to  every  one  else,  a  bright  and  hopeful 
A'iew  of  existing  circumstances. 

"  You'll  excuse  me,  sir,"  he  says,  confidentially,  when  I 
show  him  the  rooms  in  the  lean-to,  "  but  this  is  a  matter 
of  experience.  I'm  a  family  man  myself,  with  grown-up 
daughters  of  my  own,  and  the  natures  of  young  women 
are  well  known  to  me.  Make  their  rooms  comfortable, 
and  you  make  'em  happy.  Surround  their  lives,  sir, 
with  a  suitable  atmosphere  of  furniture,  and  you  never 
hear  a  word  of  complaint  drop  from  their  lips.  Now, 
with  regard  to  these  rooms,  for  example,  sir — you  put  a 
neat  French  bedstead  in  that  corner,  with  curtains  con- 
formable— say  a  tasty  chintz ;  you  put  on  that  bedstead 
what  I  will  term  a  sufficiency  of  bedding ;  and  you  top 
up  with  a  sweet  little  eider-down  quilt,  as  light  as  roses, 
and  similar  the  same  in  color.  You  do  that,  and  what 
follows  ?  You  please  her  eye  when  she  lies  down  at 
night,  and  you  please  her  eye  when  she  gets  up  in  the 


30  THK    IJTKKX    OF     IIKAKTS. 

morning — and  you're  all  right  so  far,  and  so  is  she.  I 
will  not  dwell,  sir,  on  the  toilet-table,  nor  will  I  seek  to 
detain  you  about  the  glass  to  show  her  figure,  and  the 
other  glass  to  show  her  face,  because  I  have  the  articles 
in  stock,  and  will  be  myself  answerable  for  their  effect 
on  a  lady's  mind  and  person." 

He  led  the  way  into  the  next  room  as  he  spoke,  and 
arranged  its  future  fittings  and  decorations,  as  he  had 
already  planned  out  the  bedroom,  with  the  strictest  refer- 
ence to  the  connection  which  experience  had  shown  him 
to  exist  between  comfortable  furniture  and  female  happi- 
ness. 

Thus  far,  in  my  helpless  state  of  mind,  the  man's  con- 
fidence had  impressed  me  in  spite  of  myself,  and  I  had 
listened  to  him  in  superstitious  silence.  But  as  he  con- 
tinued to  rise,  by  regular  gradations,  from  one  climax  of 
upholstery  to  another,  warning  visions  of  his  bill  dis- 
closed themselves  in  the  remote  background  of  the  scene 
of  luxury  and  magnificence  which  my  friend  was  conjur- 
ing up.  Certain  sharp  professional  instincts  of  by-gone 
times  resumed  their  influence  over  me ;  I  began  to  start 
doubts  and  ask  questions ;  and,  as  a  necessary  conse- 
quence, the  interview  between  us  soon  assumed  some- 
thing like  a  practical  form. 

Having  ascertained  what  the  probable  expense  of  fur- 
nishing would  amount  to,  and  having  discovered  that  the 
process  of  transforming  the  lean-to  (allowing  for  the 
time  required  to  procure  certain  articles  of  rarity  from 
Bristol)  would  occupy  nearly  a  fortnight,  I  dismissed  the 
upholsterer  with  the  understanding  that  I  should  take  a 
day  or  two  for  consideration,  and  let  him  know  the  re- 
sult. It  was  then  the  fifth  of  September,  and  our  Queen 
of  Hearts  was  to  arrive  on  the  twentieth.  The  work, 
therefore,  if  it  was  begun  on  the  seventh  or  eighth, 
would  be  begun  in  time. 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  31 

In  making  all  my  calculations  with  a  reference  to  the 
twentieth  of  September,  I  relied  implicitly,  it  will  be  ob- 
served, on  a  young  lady's  punctuality  in  keeping  an  ap- 
pointment which  she  had  herself  made.  I  can  only 
account  for  such  extraordinary  simplicity  on  my  part  on 
the  supposition  that  my  wits  had  become  sadly  rusted 
by  long  seclusion  from  society.  Whether  it  was  refer- 
able to  this  cause  or  not,  my  innocent  trustfulness  was  at 
any  rate  destined  to  be  practically  rebuked  before  long 
in  the  most  surprising  manner.  Little  did  I  suspect, 
when  I  parted  from  the  upholsterer  on  the  fifth  of  the 
month,  what  the  tenth  of  the  month  had  in  store  for 
me. 

On  the  seventh  I  made  up  my  mind  to  have  the  bed- 
room furnished  at  once,  and  to  postpone  the  question  of 
the  sitting-room  for  a  few  days  longer.  Having  dis- 
patched the  necessary  order  to  that  effect,  I  next  wrote 
to  hire  the  piano  and  to  order  the  box  of  novels.  This 
done,  I  congratulated  myself  on  the  forward  state  of  the 
preparations,  and  sat  down  to  repose  in  the  atmosphere 
of  my  own  happy  delusions. 

On  the  ninth  the  wagon  arrived  with  the  furniture, 
and  the  men  set  to  work  on  the  bedroom.  From  this 
moment  Morgan  retired  definitely  to  the  top  of  the  tow- 
er, and  Owen  became  too  nervous  to  lay  the  necessary 
amount  of  paint  on  the  Earthquake  at  Lisbon. 

On  the  tenth  the  work  was  proceeding  bravely.  To- 
ward noon  Owen  and  I  strolled  to  the  door  to  enjoy  the 
fine  autumn  sunshine.  We  were  sitting  lazily  on  our  fa- 
vorite bench  in  front  of  the  tower  when  we  were  startled 
by  a  shout  from  far  above  us.  Looking  up  directly,  we 
saw  Morgan  half  in  and  half  out  of  his  narrow  window 
in  the  seventh  story,  gesticulating  violently  with  the  stem 
of  his  long  meerschaum  pipe  in  the  direction  of  the  road 

below  us. 

2* 


a  2  THE    qUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

We  gazed  eagerly  in  the  quarter  thus  indicated,  but 
our  low  position  prevented  us  for  some  time  from  seeing 
any  thing.  At  last  we  both  discerned  an  old  yellow 
post-chaise  distinctly  and  indisputably  approaching  us. 

Owen  and  I  looked  at  one  another  in  panic-stricken 
silence.  It  was  coming  to  us — and  what  did  it  contain  ? 
Do  pianos  travel  in  chaises  ?  Are  boxes  of  novels  con- 
veyed to  their  destination  by  a  postillion  ?  \Ve  expect- 
ed the  piano  and  expected  the  novels,  but  nothing  else — 
unquestionably  nothing  else. 

The  chaise  took  the  turn  in  the  road,  passed  through 
the  gateless  gap  in  our  rough  inclosure-wall  of  loose 
stone,  and  rapidly  approached  us.  A  bonnet  appeared 
at  the  window,  and  a  hand  gayly  waved  a  white  hand- 
kerchief. 

Powers  of  caprice,  confusion,  and  dismay !  It  was 
Jessie  Yelverton  herself — arriving,  without  a  word  of 
warning,  exactly  ten  days  before  her  time. 


CHAPTER  III. 

OUR    QUEEX  OF    HEARTS. 

THE  chaise  stopped  in  front  of  us,  and  before  we  had 
recovered  from  our  bewilderment  the  gardener  had  open- 
ed the  door  and  let  down  the  steps. 

A  bright,  laughing  face,  prettily  framed  round  by  a 
black  veil  passed  over  the  head  and  tied  under  the  chin 
— a  traveling-dress  of  a  nankeen  color,  studded  with  blue 
buttons  and  trimmed  with  white  braid — a  light  brown 
cloak  over  it — little  neatly-gloved  hands,  which  seized  in 
an  instant  on  one  of  mine  and  on  one  of  Owen's — two 
dark  blue  eyes,  which  seemed  to  look  us  both  through 
and  through  in  a  moment — a  clear,  full,  merrily  confident 
voice — a  look  and  manner  gayly  and  gracefully  self-pos- 


THE   QUEEN   OF   HEARTS.  33 

sessed — such  were  the  characteristics  of  our  fair  guest 
which  first  struck  me  at  the  moment  when  she  left  the 
post-chaise  and  possessed  herself  of  my  hand. 

"  Don't  begin  by  scolding  me,"  she  said,  before  I  could 
utter  a  word  of  welcome.  "  There  will  be  time  enough 
for  that  in  the  course  of  the  next  six  weeks.  I  beg  par- 
don, with  all  possible  humility,  for  the  offense  of  coming 
ten  days  before  my  time.  Don't  ask  me  to  account  for 
it,  please ;  if  you  do,  I  shall  be  obliged  to  confess  the 
truth.  My  dear  sir,  the  fact  is,  this  is  an  act  of  im- 
pulse." 

She  paused,  and  looked  us  both  in  the  face  with  a 
bright  confidence  in  her  own  flow  of  nonsense  that  was 
perfectly  irresistible. 

"  I  must  tell  you  all  about  it,"  she  ran  on,  leading  the 
way  to  the  bench,  and  inviting  us,  by  a  little  mock  gest- 
ure of  supplication,  to  seat  ourselves  on  either  side  of 
her.  "  I  feel  so  guilty  till  I've  told  you.  Dear  me !  how 
nice  this  is !  Here  I  am  quite  at  home  already.  Isn't  it 
odd  ?  "Well,  and  how  do  you  think  it  happened  ?  The 
morning  before  yesterday  Matilda — there  is  Matilda, 
picking  up  my  bonnet  from  the  bottom  of  that  remarka- 
bly musty  carriage — Matilda  came  and  woke  me  as  usu- 
al, and  I  hadn't  an  idea  in  my  head,  I  assure  you,  till  she 
began  to  brush  my  hair.  Can  you  account  for  it  ? — I 
can't — but  she  seemed,  somehow,  to  brush  a  sudden  fan- 
cy for  coming  here  into  my  head.  When  I  went  down 
to  breakfast,  I  said  to  my  aunt, '  Darling,  I  have  an  irre- 
sistible impulse  to  go  to  Wales  at  once,  instead  of  wait- 
ing till  the  twentieth.'  She  made  all  the  necessary  ob- 
jections, poor  dear,  and  my  impulse  got  stronger  and 
stronger  with  every  one  of  them.  '  I'm  quite  certain,' 
I  said, '  I  shall  never  go  at  all  if  I  don't  go  now.'  '  In 
that  case,'  says  my  aunt, '  ring  the  bell,  and  have  your 
trunks  packed.  Your  whole  future  depends  on  your  go- 


34  THE    <4UEE>'    OF    HEARTS. 

ing ;  and  you  terrify  me  so  inexpressibly  that  I  shall  be 
glad  to  get  rid  of  yon.'  You  ma}'  not  think  it,  to  look 
at  her — but  Matilda  is  a  treasure;  and  in  three  hours 
more  I  was  on  the  Great  Western  Railway.  I  have  not 
the  least  idea  how  I  got  here — except  that  the  men  help- 
ed me  every  where.  They  are  always  such  delightful 
creatures!  I  have  been  casting  myself,  and  my  maid, 
and  my  trunks  on  their  tender  mercies  at  every  point  in 
the  journey,  and  their  polite  attentions  exceed  all  belief. 
I  slept  at  your  horrid  little  county  town  last  night ;  and 
the  night  before  I  missed  a  steamer  or  a  train,  I  forget 
which,  and  slept  at  Bristol ;  and  that's  how  I  got  here. 
And,  now  I  am  here,  I  ought  to  give  my  guardian  a  kiss 
—oughtn't  1  ?  Shall  I  call  you  papa  ?  I  think  I  will. 
And  shall  I  call  you  uncle,  sir,  and  give  you  a  kiss  too  ? 
We  shall  come  to  it  sooner  or  later — sha'n't  we  ? — and 
we  may  as  well  begin  at  once,  I  suppose." 

Her  fresh  young  lips  touched  my  old  withered  cheek 
lirst,  and  then  Owen's;  a  soft,  momentary  shadow  of 
tenderness,  that  was  very  pretty  and  becoming,  passing 
quickly  over  the  sunshine  and  gayety  of  her  face  as  she 
saluted  us.  The  next  moment  she  was  on  her  feet  again, 
inquiring  "  who  the  wonderful  man  was  who  built  The 
Glen  Tower,"  and  wanting  to  go  all  over  it  immediately 
from  top  to  bottom. 

As  we  took  her  into  the  house,  I  made  the  necessary 
apologies  for  the  miserable  condition  of  the  lean-to,  and 
assured  her  that,  ten  days  later,  she  would  have  found  it 
perfectly  ready  to  receive  her.  She  whisked  into  the 
rooms — looked  all  round  them — whisked  out  again — de- 
clared she  had  come  to  live  in  the  old  Tower,  and  not  in 
any  modern  addition  to  it,  and  flatly  declined  to  inhabit 
the  lean-to  on  any  terms  whatever.  I  opened  my  lips  to 
state  certain  objections,  but  she  slipped  away  in  an  in- 
stant and  made  straight  for  the  Tower  staircase. 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  35 

u  "Who  lives  here?"  she  asked,  calling  down  to  us,  ea- 
gerly, from  the  first-floor  landing. 

"I  do,"  said  Owen;  "but,  if  you  would  like  me  to 
move  out — 

She  was  away  up  the  second  flight  before  lie  could  say 
any  more.  The  next  sound  we  heard,  as  we  slowly  fol- 
lowed her,  was  a  peremptory  drumming  against  the  room 
door  of  the  second  story. 

"Any  body  here?"  we  heard  her  ask  through  the 
door. 

I  called  up  to  her  that,  under  ordinary  circumstances, 
I  was  there ;  but  that,  like  Owen,  I  should  be  happy  to 
move  out — 

My  polite  offer  was  cut  short  as  my  brother's  had  been. 
We  heard  more  drumming  at  the  door  of  the  third  story. 
There  were  two  rooms  here  also — one  perfectly  empty, 
the  other  stocked  with  odds  and  ends  of  dismal,  old-fash- 
ioned furniture  for  Avhich  we  had  no  use,  and  grimly  or- 
namented by  a  life-size  basket  figure  supporting  a  com- 
plete suit  of  armor  in  a  sadly  rusty  condition.  When 
Owen  and  I  got  to  the  third-floor  landing,  the  door  was 
open ;  Miss  Jessie  had  taken  possession  of  the  rooms ; 
and  we  found  her  on  a  chair,  dusting  the  man  in  armor 
with  her  cambric  pocket-handkerchief. 

"  I  shall  live  here,"  she  said,  looking  round  at  us  brisk- 
ly over  her  shoulder. 

We  both  remonstrated,  but  it  was  quite  in  vain.  She 
told  us  that  she  had  an  impulse  to  live  with  the  man  iu 
armor,  and  that  she  would  have  her  way,  or  go  back  im- 
mediately in  the  post-chaise,  which  we  pleased.  Finding 
it  impossible  to  move  her,  we  bargained  that  she  should, 
at  least,  allow  the  new  bed  and  the  rest  of  the  comforta- 
ble furniture  in  the  lean-to  to  be  moved  up  into  the 
empty  room  for  her  sleeping  accommodation.  She  con- 
sented to  this  condition,  protesting,  however,  to  the  last 


36  THE    QUEEX    OF    11EAKTS. 

against  being  compelled  to  sleep  in  a  bed,  because  it  was 
a  modern  conventionality,  out  of  all  harmony  with  her 
place  of  residence  and  her  friend  in  armor. 

Fortunately  for  the  repose  of  Morgan,  who,  under  oth- 
er circumstances,  would  have  discovered  on  the  very  first 
day  that  his  airy  retreat  was  by  no  means  high  enough 
to  place  him  out  of  Jessie's  reach,  the  idea  of  settling 
herself  instantly  in  her  new  habitation  excluded  every 
other  idea  from  the  mind  of  our  fair  guest.  She  pinned 
up  the  nankeen-colored  traveling-dress  in  festoons  all 
round  her  on  the  spot ;  informed  us  that  we  were  now 
about  to  make  acquaintance  with  her  in  the  new  charac- 
ter of  a  woman  of  business ;  and  darted  down  stairs  in 
mad  high  spirits,  screaming  for  Matilda  and  the  trunks 
like  a  child  for  a  set  of  new  toys.  The  wholesome  pro- 
test of  Nature  against  the  artificial  restraints  of  modern 
life  expressed  itself  in  all  that  she  said  and  in  all  that  she 
did.  She  had  never  known  what  it  was  to  be  happy  be- 
fore, because  she  had  never  been  allowed,  until  now,  to 
do  any  thing  for  herself.  She  was  down  on  her  knees  at 
one  moment,  blowing  the  fire,  and  telling  us  that  she 
felt  like  Cinderella ;  she  was  up  on  a  table  the  next,  at- 
tacking the  cobwebs  with  a  long  broom,  and  wishing  she 
had  been  born  a  housemaid.  As  for  my  unfortunate 
friend,  the  upholsterer,  he  was  leveled  to  the  ranks  at 
the  first  effort  he  made  to  assume  the  command  of  the 
domestic  forces  in  the  furniture  department.  She  laugh- 
ed at  him,  pushed  him  about,  disputed  all  his  conclusions, 
altered  all  his  arrangements,  and  ended  by  ordering  half 
his  bedroom  furniture  to  be  taken  back  again,  for  the 
one  unanswerable  reason  that  she  meant  to  do  without  it. 

As  evening  approached,  the  scene  presented  by  the 
two  rooms  became  eccentric  to  a  pitch  of  absurdity 
which  is  quite  indescribable.  The  grim,  ancient  Avails 
of  the  bedroom  had  the  liveliest  modern  dressing-gowns 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  37 

and  morning-wrappers  hanging  all  about  them.  The 
man  in  armor  had  a  collection  of  smart  little  boots  and 
shoes  dangling  by  laces  and  ribbons  round  his  iron  legs. 
A  worm-eaten,  steel-clasped  casket,  dragged  out  of  a  cor- 
ner, frowned  on  the  upholsterer's  bran-new  toilet-table, 
and  held  a  miscellaneous  assortment  of  combs,  hair-pins, 
and  brushes.  Here  stood  a  gloomy  antique  chair,  the 
patriarch  of  its  tribe,  whose  arms  of  blackened  oak  em- 
braced a  pair  of  perl,  new  deal  bonnet-boxes  not  a  fort- 
night old.  There,  thrown  down  lightly  on  a  rugged 
tapestry  table-cover,  the  long  labor  of  centuries  past,  lay 
the  brief,  delicate  work  of  a  week  ago  in  the  shape  of 
silk  and  muslin  dresses  turned  inside  out.  In  the  midst 
of  all  these  confusions  and  contradictions,  Miss  Jessie 
ranged  to  and  fro,  the  active  centre  of  the  whole  scene 
of  disorder,  now  singing  at  the  top  of  her  voice,  and  now 
declaring  in  her  light-hearted  way  that  one  of  us  must 
make  up  his  mind  to  marry  her  immediately,  as  she  was 
determined  to  settle  far  the  rest  of  her  life  at  The  Glen 
Tower. 

She  followed  up  that  announcement,  when  we  met  at 
dinnei'j  by  inquiring  if  wo.  quite  understood  by  this  time 
that  she  had  left  her  "company  manners"  in  London, 
and  that  she  meant  to  govern  us  all  at  her  absolute  will 
and  pleasure,  throughout  the  whole  period  of  her  stay. 
Having  thus  provided  at  the  outset  for  the  due  recogni- 
tion of  her  authority  by  the  household  generally  and  in- 
dividually— having  briskly  planned  out  all  her  own  forth- 
coming occupations  and  amusements  over  the  wine  and 
fruit  at  dessert,  and  having  positively  settled,  between  her 
first  and  second  cups  of  tea,  where  our  connection  with 
them  was  to  begin  and  where  it  was  to  end,  she  had 
actually  succeeded,  when  the  time  came  to  separate  for 
the  night,  in  setting  us  as  much  at  our  ease,  and  in  mak- 
ing herself  as  completely  a  necessary  part  of  our  house- 


38  THE    yUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 


hold  as  if  she  had  lived  among  us  for  years  and  year? 
past. 

Such  was  our  first  day's  experience  of  the  formidable 
guest  whose  anticipated  visit  had  so  sorely  and  so  ab- 
surdly discomposed  us  all.  I  could  hardly  believe  that  I 
had  actually  wasted  hours  of  precious  time  in  worrying 
myself  and  every  body  else  in  the  house  about  the  best 
means  of  laboriously  entertaining  a  lively,  high-spirited 
girl,  who  was  perfectly  capable,  without  an  effort  on  her 
own  part  or  on  ours,  of  entertaining  herself. 

Having  upset  every  one  of  our  calculations  on  the  first 
day  of  her  arrival,  she  next  falsified  all  our  predictions 
before  she  had  been  with  us  a  week.  Instead  of  fractur- 
ing her  skull  with  the  pony,  as  Morgan  had  prophesied, 
she  sat  the  sturdy,  sure-footed,  mischievous  little  brute 
as  if  she  were  part  and  parcel  of  himself.  With  an  old 
water-proof  cloak  of  mine  on  her  shoulders,  with  a  broad- 
flapped  Spanish  hat  of  Owen's  on  her  head,  with  a  wild 
imp  of  a  Welsh  boy  following  her  as  guide  and  groom 
on  a  bare-backed  pony,  and  with  one  of  the  largest  and 
ugliest  cur-dogs  in  England  (which  she  had  picked  up, 
lost  and  starved  by  the  wayside)  barking  at  her  heels, 
she  scoured  the  country  in  all  directions,  and  came  back 
to  dinner,  as  she  herself  expressed  it,  "  with  the  manners 
of  an  Amazon,  the  complexion  of  a  dairy-maid,  and  the 
appetite  of  a  wolf." 

On  days  when  incessant  rain  kept  her  in-doors,  she 
amused  herself  with  a  new  freak.  Making  friends  every 
where,  as  became  The  Queen  of  Hearts,  she  even  in- 
gratiated herself  with  the  sour  old  housekeeper,  who 
had  predicted  so  obstinately  that  she  was  certain  to  run 
away.  To  the  amazement  of  every  body  in  the  house, 
she  spent  hours  in  the  kitchen,  learning  to  make  pud- 
dings and.  pies,  and  trying  all  sorts  of  receipts  with  very 
varying  success,  from  an  antiquated  cookery  book  which 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  39 

she  had  discovered  at  the  back  of  my  book-shelves.  At 
other  times,  when  I  expected  her  to  be  up  stairs,  languid- 
ly examining  her  tinery,  and  idly  polishing  her  trinkets, 
I  heard  of  her  in  the  stables,  feeding  the  rabbits,  and 
talking  to  the  raven,  or  found  her  in  the  conservatory, 
fumigating  the  plants,  and  half  suffocating  the  gardener, 
who  was  trying  to  moderate  her  enthusiasm  in  the  pro- 
duction of  smoke. 

Instead  of  finding  amusement,  as  we  had  expected,  in 
Owen's  studio,  she  puckered  up  her  pretty  face  in  grim- 
aces of  clisgust  at  the  smell  of  paint  in  the  room,  and  de- 
clared that  the  horrors  of  the  Earthquake  at  Lisbon 
made  her  feel  hysterical.  Instead  of  showing  a  total 
want  of  interest  in  my  business  occupations  on  the  es- 
tate, she  destroyed  my  dignity  as  steward  by  joining  me 
in  my  rounds  on  her  pony,  with  her  vagabond  retinue  at 
her  heels.  Instead  of  devouring  the  novels  I  had  order- 
ed for  her,  she  left  them  in  the  box,  and  put  her  feet  on 
it  when  she  felt  sleepy  after  a  hard  day's  riding.  Instead 
of  practicing  for  hours  every  evening  at  the  piano,  which 
I  had  hired  with  such  a  firm  conviction  of  her  using  it, 
she  showed  us  tricks  on  the  cards,  taught  us  new  games, 
initiated  us  into  the  mysteries  of  dominoes,  challenged 
us  with  riddles,  and  even  attempted  to  stimulate  us  into 
acting  charades — in  short,  tried  every  evening  amuse- 
ment in  the  whole  category  except  the  amusement  of 
music.  Every  new  aspect  of  her  character  was  a  new 
surprise  to  us,  and  every  fresh  occupation  that  she  chose 
was  a  fresh  contradiction  to  our  previous  expectations. 
The  value  of  experience  as  a  guide  is  unquestionable  in 
many  of  the  most  important  affairs  of  life ;  but,  speaking 
for  myself  personally,  I  never  understood  the  litter  fu- 
tility of  it,  where  a  woman  is  concerned,  until  I  was 
brought  into  habits  of  daily  communication  with  our  fair 
guest. 


40  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

In  her  domestic  relations  with  ourselves  she  showed 
that  exquisite  nicety  of  discrimination  in  studying  our 
characters,  habits,  and  tastes  which  comes  by  instinct 
with  women,  and  which  even  the  longest  practice  rarely 
teaches  in  similar  perfection  to  men,  She  saw  at  a 
glance  all  the  underlying  tenderness  and  generosity  con- 
cealed beneath  Owen's  external  shyness, irresolution,  and 
occasional  reserve ;  and,  from  first  to  last,  even  in  her 
gayest  moments,  there  was  always  a  certain  quietly-im- 
plied consideration — an  easy,  graceful,  delicate  deference 
—  in  her  manner  toward  my  eldest  brother,  which  won 
upon  me  and  upon  him  every  hour  in  the  day, 

With  me  she  was  freer  in  her  talk,  quicker  in  her  ac- 
tions, readier  and  bolder  in  all  the  thousand  little  famil- 
iarities of  our  daily  intercourse.  When  we  met  in  the 
morning  she  always  took  Owen's  hand,  and  waited  till 
he  kissed  her  on  the  forehead.  In  my  case  she  put  both 
her  hands  on  my  shoulders,  raised  herself  on  tiptoe,  and 
saluted  me  briskly  on  both  cheeks  in  the  foreign  way. 
She  never  differed  in  opinion  with  Owen  without  propi- 
tiating him  first  by  some  little  artful  compliment  in  the 
way  of  excuse.  She  argued  boldly  with  me  on  every 
subject  under  the  sun,  law  and  politics  included ;  and, 
when  I  got  the  better  of  her,  never  hesitated  to  stop  me 
by  putting  her  hand  on  my  lips,  or  by  dragging  me  out 
into  the  garden  in  the  middle  of  a  sentence. 

As  for  Morgan,  she  abandoned  all  restraint  hi  his  case 
on  the  second  day  of  her  sojourn  among  tis.  She  had 
asked  after  him  as  soon  as  she  was  settled  in  her  two 
rooms  on  the  third  story ;  had  insisted  on  knowing  why 
he  lived  at  the  top  of  the  tower,  and  why  he  had  not  ap- 
peared to  welcome  her  at  the  door;  had  entrapped  us 
into  all  sorts  of  damaging  admissions,  and  had  thereup- 
on discovered  the  true  state  of  the  case  in  less  than  five 
minutes. 


THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS.  4] 

From  that  time  my  unfortunate  second  brother  be- 
came the  victim  of  all  that  was  mischievous  and  reckless 
in  her  disposition.  She  forced  him  down  stairs  by  a 
series  of  manoeuvres  which  rendered  his  refuge  uninhab- 
itable, and  then  pretended  to  fall  violently  in  love  with 
him.  She  slipped  little  pink  three-cornered  notes  under 
his  door,  entreating  him  to  make  appointments  with  her, 
or  tenderly  inquiring  how  he  would  like  to  see  her  hair 
dressed  at  dinner  on  that  day.  She  followed  him  into 
the  garden,  sometimes  to  ask  for  the  privilege  of  smelling 
his  tobacco-smoke,  sometimes  to  beg  for  a  lock  of  his 
hair,  or  a  fragment  of  his  ragged  old  dressing-gown,  to 
put  among  her  keepsakes.  She  sighed  at  him  when  he 
was  in  a  passion,  and  put  her  handkerchief  to  her  eyes 
when  he  was  sulky.  In  short,  she  tormented  Morgan, 
whenever  she  could  catch  him,  with  such  ingenious  and 
such  relentless  malice,  that  he  actually  threatened  to  go 
back  to  London,  and  prey  once  more,  in  the  unscrupulous 
character  of  a  doctor,  on  the  credulity  of  mankind. 

Thus  situated  in  her  relations  toward  ourselves,  and 
thus  occupied  by  country  diversions  of  her  own  choos- 
ing, Miss  Jessie  passed  her  time  at  The  Glen  Tower,  ex- 
cepting now  and  then  a  dull  hour  in  the  long  evenings, 
to  her  guardian's  satisfaction — and,  all  things  consider- 
ed, not  without  pleasure  to  herself.  Day  followed  day 
in  calm  and  smooth  succession,  and  five  quiet  weeks  had 
elapsed  out  of  the  six  during  which  her  stay  was  to  last 
without  any  remarkable  occurrence  to  distinguish  them, 
when  an  event  happened  which  personally  affected  me  in 
a  very  serious  manner,  and  which  suddenly  caused  our 
handsome  Queen  of  Hearts  to  become  the  object  of  my 
deepest  anxiety  in  the  present,  and  of  my  dearest  hopes 
for  the  future. 


42  THE    iJUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

OUR    GRAND    PROJECT. 

AT  the  end  of  the  fifth  week  of  our  guest's  stay,  among 
the  letters  which  the  morning's  post  brought  to  The 
Glen  Tower  there  was  one  for  me,  from  my  son  George, 
in  the  Crimea. 

The  effect  which  this  letter  produced  in  our  little  cir- 
cle renders  it  necessary  that  I  should  present  it  here,  to 
speak  for  itself. 

This  is  what  I  read  alone  in  my  own  room : 

"  MY  DEAREST  FATHER, — After  the  great  public  news 
of  the  fall  of  Sebastopol,  have  you  any  ears  left  for  small 
items  of  private  intelligence  from  insignificant  subaltern 
officers  ?  Prepare,  if  you  have,  for  a  sudden  and  a  start- 
ling announcement.  How  shall  I  write  the  words? 
How  shall  I  tell  you  that  I  am  really  coming  home? 

"  I  have  a  private  opportunity  of  sending  this  letter, 
and  only  a  short  time  to  write  it  in  ;  so  I  must  put  main- 
things,  if  I  can,  into  few  words.  The  doctor  has  re- 
ported me  fit  to  travel  at  last,  and  I  leave,  thanks  to  the 
privilege  of  a  Avounded  man,  by  the  next  ship.  The 
name  of  the  vessel  and  the  time  of  starting  are  on  the 
list  which  I  inclose.  I  have  made  all  my  calculations, 
and,  allowing  for  every  possible  delay,  I  find  that  I  shall 
be  with  you,  at  the  latest,  on  the  first  of  November — 
perhaps  some  days  earlier. 

"  I  am  far  too  full  of  my  return,  and  of  something  else 
connected  with  it  which  is  equally  dear  to  me,  to  say 
any  thing  about  public  affairs,  more  especially  as  I  know 
that  the  newspapers  must,  by  this  time,  have  given  you 


THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS.  43 

plenty  of  information.  Let  me  fill  the  rest  of  this  paper 
with  a  subject  which  is  very  near  to  my  heart — nearer,  I 
am  almost  ashamed  to  say,  than  the  great  triumph  of  my 
countrymen,  in  which  my  disabled  condition  has  pre- 
vented me  from  taking  any  share. 

"  I  gathered  from  your  last  letter  that  Miss  Yelverton 
was  to  pay  you  a  visit  this  autumn,  in  your  capacity  of 
her  guardian.  If  she  is  already  with  you,  pray  move 
heaven  and  earth  to  keep  her  at  The  Glen  Tower  till  I 
come  back.  Do  you  anticipate  my  confession  from  this 
entreaty  ?  My  dear,  dear  father,  all  my  hopes  rest  on 
that  one  darling  treasure  which  you  are  guarding  per- 
haps, at  this  moment,  under  your  own  roof — all  my  hap- 
piness depends  on  making  Jessie  Yelverton  my  wife. 

"  If  I  did  not  sincerely  believe  that  you  will  heartily 
approve  of  my  choice,  I  should  hardly  have  ventured  on 
this  abrupt  confession.  Now  that  I  have  made  it,  let  me 
go  on  and  tell  you  why  I  have  kept  my  attachment  up 
to  this  time  a  secret  from  every  one — even  from  Jessie 
herself.  (You  see  I  call  her  by  her  Christian  name  al- 
ready i) 

"  I  should  have  risked  every  thing,  father,  and  have 
laid  my  whole  heart  open  before  her  more  than  a  year 
ago,  but  for  the  order  which  sent  our  regiment  out  to 
take  its  share  in  this  great  struggle  of  the  Russian  war. 
No  ordinary  change  in  my  life  would  have  silenced  me 
on  the  subject  of  all  others  of  which  I  was  most  anxious 
to  speak ;  but  this  change  made  me  think  seriously  of 
the  future  ;  and  out  of  those  thoughts  came  the  resolu- 
tion which  I  have  kept  until  this  time.  For  her  sake, 
and  for  her  sake  only,  I  constrained  myself  to  leave  the 
words  unspoken  which  might  have  made  her  my  prom- 
ised wife.  I  resolved  to  spare  her  the  dreadful  suspense 
of  waiting  for  her  betrothed  husband  till  the  perils  of 
war  might,  or  might  not,  give  him  back  to  her.  I  re- 


44  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

solved  to  save  her  from  the  bitter  grief  of  my  death  if  a 
bullet  laid  me  low.  I  resolved  to  preserve  her  from  the 
wretched  sacrifice  of  herself  if  I  came  back,  as  many  a 
brave  man  will  come  back  from  this  war,  invalided  for 
life.  Leaving  her  untrammeled  by  any  engagement,  un- 
suspicious perhaps  of  my  real  feelings  toward  her,  I  might 
die,  and  know  that,  by  keeping  silence,  I  had  spared  a 
pang  to  the  heart  that  was  dearest  to  me.  This  was  the 
thought  that  stayed  the  words  on  my  lips  when  I  left 
England,  uncertain  whether  I  should  ever  come  back. 
If  I  had  loved  her  less  dearly,  if  her  happiness  had  been 
less  precious  to  me,  I  might  have  given  way  under  the 
hard  restraint  I  imposed  on  myself,  and  might  have 
spoken  selfishly  at  the  last  moment. 

"  And  now  the  time  of  trial  is  past ;  the  war  is  over  ; 
and,  although  I  still  walk  a  little  lame,  I  am,  thank  God, 
in  as  good  health  and  in  much  better  spirits  than  when  I 
left  home.  Oh,  father,  if  I  should  lo?e  her  now — if  I 
should  get  no  reward  for  sparing  her  but  the  bitterest 
of  all  disappointments !  Sometimes  I  am  vain  enough  to 
think  that  I  made  some  little  impression  on  her ;  some- 
times I  doubt -if  she  has  a  suspicion  of  my  love.  She 
lives  in  a  gay  world — she  is  the  centre  of  perpetual  admi- 
ration— men  with  all  the  qualities  to  win  a  woman's  heart 
are  perpetually  about  her — can  I,  dare  I  hope  ?  Yes,  I 
must !  Only  keep  her,  I  entreat  you,  at  The  Glen  Tower. 
In  that  quiet  world,  in  that  freedom  from  frivolities  and 
temptations,  she  will  listen  to  me  as  she  might  listen 
nowhere  else.  Keep  her,  my  dearest,  kindest  father — 
and,  above  all  things,  breathe  not  a  Avord  to  her  of  this 
letter.  I  have  surely  earned  the  privilege  of  being  the 
first  to  open  her  eyes  to  the  truth.  She  must  know 
nothing,  now  that  I  am  coming  home,  till  she  knows  all 
from  my  own  lips." 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  45 

Here  the  writing  hurriedly  broke  off.  I  am  only  giv- 
ing myself  credit  for  common  feeling,  I  trust,  when  I 
confess  that  what  I  read  deeply  affected  me.  I  think  I 
never  felt  so  fond  of  my  boy,  and  so  proud  of  him,  as  at 
the  moment  when  I  laid  down  his  letter. 

As  soon  as  I  could  control  my  spirits,  I  began  to  cal- 
culate the  question  of  time  with  a  trembling  eagerness, 
which  brought  back  to  my  mind  my  own  young  days  of 
love  and  hope.  My  son  was  to  come  back,  at  the  latest, 
on  the  first  of  November,  and  Jessie's  allotted  six  weeks 
would  expire  on  the  twenty-second  of  October.  Ten 
days  too  soon !  But  for  the  caprice  which  had  brought 
her  to  us  exactly  that  number  of  days  before  her  time, 
she  would  have  been  in  the  house,  as  a  matter  of  neces- 
sity, on  George's  return. 

I  searched  back  in  my  memory  for  a  conversation  that 
I  had  held  with  her  a  week  since  on  her  future  plans. 
Toward  the  middle  of  November,  her  aunt,  Lady  West- 
wick,  had  arranged  to  go  to  her  house  in  Paris,  and 
Jessie  was,  of  course,  to  accompany  her — to  accompany 
her  into  that  very  circle  of  the  best  English  and  the  best 
French  society  which  contained  in  it  the  elements  most 
adverse  to  George's  hopes.  Between  this  time  and  that 
she  had  no  special  engagement,  and  she  had  only  settled 
to  write  and  warn  her  aunt  of  her  return  to  London  a 
day  or  two  before  she  left  The  Glen  Tower. 

Under  these  circumstances,  the  first,  the  all-important 
necessity  was  to  prevail  on  her  to  prolong  her  stay  be- 
yond the  allotted  six  weeks  by  ten  days.  After  the  cau- 
tion to  be  silent  impressed  on  me  (and  most  naturally, 
poor  boy)  in  George's  letter,  I  felt  that  I  could  only 
appeal  to  her  on  the  ordinary  ground  of  hospitality. 
Would  this  be  sufficient  to  effect  the  object. 

I  was  sure  that  the  hours  of  the  morning  and  the 
afternoon  had,  thus  far,  been  fully  and  happily  occupied 


46  THE    QL'KEX    OF    HEARTS. 

by  her  various  amusements  in-doors  and  out.  She  was 
no  more  weary  of  her  days  now  than  she  had  been  when 
she  first  came  among  us.  But  I  was  by  no  means  so 
certain  that  she  was  not  tired  of  her  evenings.  I  had 
latterly  noticed  symptoms  of  weariness  after  the  lamps 
were  lit,  and  a  suspicious  regularity  in  retiring  to  bed 
the  moment  the  clock  struck  ten.  If  I  could  provide 
her  with  a  new  amusement  for  the  long  evenings,  I 
might  leave  the  days  to  take  care  of  themselves,  and 
might  then  make  sure  (seeing  that  she  had  no  special 
engagement  in  London  until  the  middle  of  November) 
of  her  being  sincerely  thankful  and  ready  to  prolong  Her 
stay. 

How  was  this  to  be  done  ?  The  piano  and  the  novels 
had  both  failed  to  attract  her.  What  other  amusement 
was  there  to  offer  ? 

It  was  useless,  at  present,  to  ask  myself  such  questions 
as  these.  I  was  too  much  agitated  to  think  collectedly 
on  the  most  trifling  subjects.  I  was  even  too  restless  to 
stay  in  my  own  room.  My  son's  letter  had  given  me  so 
fresh  an  interest  in  Jessie,  that  I  was  now  as  impatient 
to  see  her  as  if  we  were  about  to  meet  for  the  first  time. 
I  wanted  to  look  at  her  with  my  new  eyes,  to  listen  to 
her  with  my  new  ears,  to  study  her  secretly  with  my 
new  purposes,  and  my  new  hopes  and  fears.  To  my 
dismay  (for  I  wanted  the  very  weather  itself  to  favor 
George's  interests),  it  was  raining  heavily  that  morning. 
I  knew,  therefore,  that  I  should  probably  find  her  in  her 
own  sitting-room.  When  I  knocked  at  her  door,  with 
George's  letter  crumpled  up  in  my  hand,  with  George's 
hopes  in  full  possession  of  my  heart,  it  is  no  exaggeration 
to  say  that  my  nerves  were  almost  as  much  fluttered, 
and  my  ideas  almost  as  much  confused,  as  they  were  on 
a  certain  memorable  day  in  the  far  past,  when  I  rose,  in 
bran-new  wig  and  gown,  to  set  my  future  prospects  at 
the  Bar  on  the  hazard  of  my  first  speech. 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  4? 

When  I  entered  the  room  I  found  Jessie  leaning  back 
languidly  in  her  largest  arm-chair,  watching  the  rain- 
drops dripping  down  the  window-pane.  The  unfortu- 
nate box  of  novels  was  open  by  her  side,  and  the  books 
were  lying,  for  the  most  part,  strewed  about  on  the 
ground  at  her  feet.  One  volume  lay  open,  back  upward, 
on  her  lap,  and  her  hands  were  crossed  over  it  listlessly. 
To  my  great  dismay,  she  was  yawning — palpably  and 
widely  yawning — when  I  came  in. 

No  sooner  did  I  find  myself  in  her  presence  than  an 
irresistible  anxiety  to  make  some  secret  discovery  of  the 
real  state  of  her  feelings  toward  George  took  possession 
of  me.  After  the  customary  condolences  on  the  impris- 
onment to  which  she  was  subjected  by  the  weather,  I 
said,  in  as  careless  a  manner  as  it  was  possible  to  as- 
sume, 

"I  have  heard  from  my  son  this  morning.  He  talks 
of  being  ordered  home,  and  tells  me  I  may  expect  to  see 
him  before  the  end  of  the  year." 

I  was  too  cautious  to  mention  the  exact  date  of  his  re- 
turn, for  in  that  case  she  might  have  detected  my  motive 
for  asking  her  to  prolong  her  visit. 

"  Oh,  indeed  ?"  she  said.  "  How  very  nice.  How  glad 
you  must  be." 

I  watched  her  narrowly.  The  clear,  dark  blue  eyes 
met  mine  as  openly  as  ever.  The  smooth,  round  cheeks 
kept  their  fresh  color  quite  unchanged.  The  full,  good- 
humored,  smiling  lips  never  trembled  or  altered  their  ex- 
pression in  the  slightest  degree.  Her  light  checked  silk 
dress,  with  its  pretty  trimming  of  cherry -colored  ribbon, 
lay  quite  still  over  the  bosom  beneath  it.  For  all  the  in- 
formation I  could  get  from  her  look  and  manner,  we 
might  as  well  have  been  a  hundred  miles  apart  from  each 
other.  Is  the  best  woman  in  the  world  little  better  than 
a  fathomless  abyss  of  duplicity  on  certain  occasions,  and 

8 


4tf  THE    QVEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

where  certain  feelings  of  her  own  are  concerned?  I 
would  rather  not  think  that ;  and  yet  I  don't  know  how 
to  account  otherwise  for  the  masterly  manner  in  which 
Miss  Jessie  contrived  to  baffle  me. 

I  was  afraid — literally  afraid  to  broach  the  subject  of 
prolonging  her  sojourn  with  us  on  a  rainy  day,  so  I 
changed  the  topic,  in  despair,  to  the  novels  that  were 
scattered  about  her. 

"  Can  you  find  nothing  there,"  I  asked,  "to  amuse  you 
this  wet  morning  ?" 

"  There  are  two  or  three  good  novels,"  she  said,  care- 
lessly, "  but  I  read  them  before  I  left  London." 

"  And  the  others  won't  even  do  for  a  dull  day  in  the 
country?"  I  went  on. 

"They  might  do  for  some  people,"  she  answered,  "but 
not  for  me.  I'm  rather  peculiar,  perhaps,  in  my  tastes. 
I'm  sick  to  death  of  novels  with  an  earnest  purpose.  I'm 
sick  to  death  of  outbursts  of  eloquence,  and  large-mind- 
ed philanthropy,  and  graphic  descriptions,  and  unspar- 
ing anatomy  of  the  human  heart,  and  all  that  sort  of 
thing.  Good  gracious  me !  isn't  it  the  original  intention 
or  purpose,  or  whatever  you  call  it,  of  a  work  of  fiction, 
to  set  out  distinctly  by  telling  a  story  ?  And  how  many 
of  these  books,  I  should  like  to  know,  do  that  ?  Why, 
so  far  as  telling  a  story  is  concerned,  the  greater  part  of 
them  might  as  well  be  sermons  as  novels.  Oh,  dear  me ! 
what  I  want  is  something  that  seizes  hold  of  my  interest, 
and  makes  me  forget  when  it  is  time  to  dress  for  dinner 
— something  that  keeps  me  reading,  reading,  reading,  in 
a  breathless  state,  to  find  out  the  end.  You  know  what 
I  mean — at  least  you  ought.  Why,  there  was  that  little 
chance  story  you  told  me  yesterday  in  the  garden — don't 
you  remember? — about  your  strange  client,  whom  you 
never  saw  again :  I  declare  it  was  much  more  interesting 
than  half  these  novels,  because  it  was  a  story.  Tell  me 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  49 

another  about  your  young  days,  when  you  were  seeing 
the  world,  and  meeting  with  all  sorts  of  remarkable  peo- 
ple. Or,  no — don't  tell  it  now — keep  it  till  the  evening, 
when  we  all  want  something  to  stir  us  up.  You  old 
people  might  amuse  us  young  ones  out  of  your  own  re- 
sources oftener  than  you  do.  It  was  very  kind  of  you 
to  get  me  these  books,  but,  with  all  respect  to  them,  I 
would  rather  have  the  rummaging  of  your  memory  than 
the  rummaging  of  this  box.  What's  the  matter?  Are 
you  afraid  I  have  found  out  the  window  in  your  bosom 
already  ?" 

I  had  half  risen  from  my  chair  at  her  last  words,  and 
I  felt  that  my  face  must  have  flushed  at  the  same  mo- 
ment. She  had  started  an  idea  in  my  mind — the  very 
idea  of  which  I  had  been  in  search  when  I  was  ponder- 
ing over  the  best  means  of  amusing  her  in  the  long  au- 
tumn evenings. 

I  parried  her  questions  by  the  best  excuses  I  could  of- 
fer ;  changed  the  conversation  for  the  next  five  minutes, 
and  then,  making  a  sudden  remembrance  of  business  my 
apology  for  leaving  her,  hastily  withdrew  to  devote  my- 
self to  the  new  idea  in  the  solitude  of  my  own  room. 

A  little  quiet  thinking  convinced  me  that  I  had  discov- 
ered a  means  not  only  of  occupying  her  idle  time,  but  of 
decoying  her  into  staying  on  with  us,  evening  by  even- 
ing, until  my  son's  return.  The  new  project  which  she 
had  herself  unconsciously  suggested  involved  nothing 
less  than  acting  forthwith  on  her  own  chance  hint,  and 
appealing  to  her  interest  and  curiosity  by  the  recital  of 
incidents  and  adventures  drawn  from  my  own  personal 
experience,  and  (if  I  could  get  them  to  help  me)  from 
the  experience  of  my  brothers  as  well.  Strange  people 
and  startling  events  had  connected  themselves  with 
Owen's  past  life  as  a  clergyman,  with  Morgan's  past  life 
as  a  doctor,  and  with  my  past  life  as  a  lawyer,  which  of- 


50  TIIK    QUEEN"    OF    HEARTS. 

fered  elements  of  interest  of  a  strong  and  striking  kind 
ready  to  our  hands.  If  these  narratives  were  written 
plainly  and  unpretendingly ;  if  one  of  them  was  read 
every  evening,  under  circumstances  that  should  piqiu- 
the  curiosity  and  impress  the  imagination  of  our  young 
guest,  the  very  occupation  was  found  for  her  weary  hours 
which  would  gratify  her  tastes,  appeal  to  her  natural  in- 
terest in  the  early  lives  of  my  brothers  and  myself,  and 
lure  her  insensibly  into  prolonging  her  visit  by  ten  days 
Avithout  exciting  a  suspicion  of  our  real  motive  for  de- 
taining her. 

I  sat  down  at  my  desk ;  I  hid  my  face  in  my  hands  to 
keep  out  all  impressions  of  external  and  present  things ; 
and  I  searched  back  through  the  mysterious  labyrinth 
of  the  Past,  through  the  dim,  ever-deepening  twilight  of 
the  years  that  were  gone. 

Slowly,  out  of  the  awful  shadows,  the  Ghosts  of  Mem- 
ory rose  about  me.  The  dead  population  of  a  vanished 
world  came  back  to  life  round  me,  a  living  man.  Men 
and  women  whose  earthly  pilgrimage  had  ended  long 
since,  returned  upon  me  from  the  unknown  spheres,  and 
fond  familiar  voices  burst  their  way  back  to  my  ears 
through  the  heavy  silence  of  the  grave.  Moving  by  me 
in  the  nameless  inner  light,  which  no  eye  saw  but  mine, 
the  dead  procession  oi  immaterial  scenes  and  beings  un- 
rolled its  silent  length.  I  saw  once  more  the  pleading 
face  of  a  friend  of  early  days,  with  the  haunting  vision 
that  had  tortured  him  through  life  by  his  side  again — 
with  the  long-forgotten  despair  in  his  eyes  which  had 
once  touched  my  heart,  and  bound  me  to  him,  till  I  had 
tracked  his  destiny  through  its  darkest  windings  to  the 
end.  I  saw  the  figure  of  an  innocent  woman  passing  to 
and  fro  in  an  ancient  country  house,  with  the  shadow  of 
a  strange  suspicion  stealing  after  her  wherever  she  went. 
I  saw  a  man  worn  by  hardship  and  old  age,  stretched 


THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS.  51 

dreaming  on  the  straw  of  a  stable,  and  muttering  in  his 
dream  the  terrible  secret  of  his  life.  Other  scenes  and 
persons  followed  these,  less  vivid  in  their  revival,  but 
still  always  recognizable  and  distinct :  a  young  girl  alone 
by  night,  and  in  peril  of  her  life,  in  a  cottage  on  a  dreary 
moor — an  upper  chamber  of  an  inn,  with  two  beds  in  it ; 
the  curtains  of  one  bed  closed,  and  a  man  standing  by 
them,  waiting,  yet  dreading  to  draw  them  back — a  hus- 
band secretly  following  the  first  traces  of  a  mystery 
which  his  wife's  anxious  love  had  fatally  hidden  from 
him  since  the  day  when  they  first  met :  these,  and  othet 
visions  like  them,  shadowy  reflections  of  the  living  be- 
ings and  the  real  events  that  had  been  once,  peopled  the 
solitude  and  the  emptiness  around  me.  They  haunted 
me  still  when  I  tried  to  break  the  chain  of  thought  which 
my  own  eiforts  had  wound  about  my  mind ;  they  follow- 
ed me  to  and  fro  in  the  room ;  and  they  came  out  with 
me  when  I  left  it.  I  had  lifted  the  veil  from  the  Past 
for  myself,  and  I  was  now  to  rest  no  more  till  I  had  lifted 
it  for  others. 

I  went  at  once  to  my  eldest  brother  and  showed  him 
my  son's  letter,  and  told  him  all  that  I  have  written  here. 
His  kind  heart  was  touched  as  mine  had  been.  He  felt 
for  my  suspense ;  he  shared  my  anxiety ;  lie  laid  aside 
his  own  occupation  on  the  spot. 

"  Only  tell  nre,"  he  said,  "  how  I  can  help,  and  I  will 
give  every  hour  in  the  day  to  you  and  to  George." 

I  had  come  to  him  with  my  mind  almost  as  full  of  his 
past  life  as  of  my  own ;  I  recalled  to  his  memory  events 
in  his  experience  as  a  working  clergyman  in  London ;  I 
set  him  looking  among  papers  which  he  had  preserved 
for  half  his  lifetime,  and  the  very  existence  of  which  he 
had  forgotten  long  since ;  I  recalled  to  him  the  names  of 
persons  to  whose  necessities  he  had  ministered  in  his 
sacred  office,  and  whose  stories  he  had  heard  from  their 


52  THE   QUEEX    OF   HEARTS. 

own  lips  or  received  under  their  own  handwriting. 
When  we  parted  he  was  certain  of  what  he  was  wanted 
to  do,  and  was  resolute  on  that  very  day  to  begin  the 
work. 

I  went  to  Morgan  next,  and  appealed  to  him  as  I  had 
already  appealed  to  Owen.  It  was  only  part  of  his  odd 
character  to  start  all  sorts  of  eccentric  objections  in  re- 
ply; to  affect  a  cynical  indifference,  which  he  was  far 
from  really  and  truly  feeling ;  and  to  indulge  in  plenty 
of  quaint  sarcasm  on  the  subject  of  Jessie  and  his  nephew 
George.  I  waited  till  these  little  surface-ebullitions  had 
all  expended  themselves,  and  then  pressed  my  point  again 
with  the  earnestness  and  anxiety  that  I  really  felt. 

Evidently  touched  by  the  manner  of  my  appeal  to  him 
even  more  than  by  the  language  in  which  it  was  express- 
ed, Morgan  took  refuge  in  his  customary  abruptness, 
spread  out  his  paper  violently  on  the  table,  seized  his  pen 
and  ink,  and  told  me  quite  fiercely  to  give  him  his  work 
and  let  him  tackle  it  at  once. 

I  set  myself  to  recall  to  his  memory  some  very  remark- 
able experiences  of  his  own  in  his  professional  days,  but 
he  stopped  me  before  I  had  half  done. 

"  I  understand,"  he  said,  taking  a  savage  dip  at  the 
ink,  "  I'm  to  make  her  flesh  creep,  and  to  frighten  her 
out  of  her  wits.  I'll  do  it  with  a  vengeance !" 

O 

Reserving  to  myself  privately  an  editorial  right  of  su- 
pervision over  Morgan's  contributions,  I  returned  to  my 
own  room  to  begin  my  share — by  far  the  largest  one — 
of  the  task  before  us.  The  stimulus  applied  to  my  mind 
by  my  son's  letter  must  have  been  a  strong  one  indeed, 
for  I  had  hardly  been  more  than  an  hour  at  my  desk  be- 
fore I  found  the  old  literary  facility  of  my  youthful  days, 
when  I  was  a  writer  for  the  magazines,  returning  to  me 
as  if  by  magic.  I  worked  on  unremittingly  till  dinner- 
time, and  then  resumed  the  pen  after  we  had  all  separa- 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEAKTS.  53 

ted  for  the  night.  At  two  o'clock  the  next  morning  I 
found  myself — God  help  me ! — masquerading,  as  it  were, 
in  my  own  long-lost  character  of  a  hard-writing  young 
man,  with  the  old  familiar  cup  of  strong  tea  by  my  side, 
and  the  old  familiar  wet  towel  tied  round  my  head. 

My  review  of  the  progress  I  had  made,  when  I  looked 
back  at  my  pages  of  manuscript,  yielded  all  the  encour- 
agement I  wanted  to  drive  me  on.  It  is  only  just,  how- 
ever, to  add  to  the  record  of  this  first  day's  attempt,  that 
the  literary  labor  which  it  involved  was  by  no  means  of 
the  most  trying  kind.  The  great  strain  on  the  intellect 
— the  strain  of  invention — was  spared  me  by  my  having 
real  characters  and  events  ready  to  my  hand.  If  I  had 
been  called  on  to  create,  I  should,  in  all  probability,  have 
suffered  severely  by  contrast  with  the  very  worst  of 
those  unfortunate  novelists  whom  Jessie  had  so  rashly 
and  so  thoughtlessly  condemned.  It  is  -not  wonderful 
that  the  public  should  rarely  know  how  to  estimate  the 
vast  service  which  is  done  to  them  by  the  production  of 
a  good  book,  seeing  that  they  are,  for  the  most  part,  tit- 
terly  ignorant  of  the  immense  difficulty  of  writing  even 
a  bad  one. 

The  next  day  was  fine,  to  my  great  relief;  and  our 
visitor,  while  we  were  at  work,  enjoyed  her  customary 
scamper  on  the  pony,  and  her  customary  rambles  after- 
ward in  the  neighborhood  of  the  house.  Although  I  had 
interruptions  to  contend  with  on  the  part  of  Owen  and 
Morgan,  neither  of  whom  possessed  my  experience  in  the 
production  of  what  heavy  people  call  "  light  literature," 
and  both  of  whom  consequently  wanted  assistance,  still 
I  made  great  progress,  and  earned  my  hours  of  repose 
on  the  evening  of  the  second  day. 

On  that  evening  I  risked  the  worst,  and  opened  my 
negotiations  for  the  future  with  "  The  Queen  of  Hearts." 

About  an  hour  after  the  tea  had  been  removed,  and 


54  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

when  I  happened  to  be  left  alone  in  the  room  with  her, 
I  noticed  that  she  rose  suddenly  and  went  to  the  writing- 
table.  My  suspicions  were  aroused  directly,  and  I  enter- 
ed on  the  dangerous  subject  by  inquiring  if  she  intended 
to  write  to  her  aunt. 

"  Yes,"  she  said.  "  I  promised  to  write  when  the  last 
week  came.  If  you  had  paid  me  the  compliment  of  ask- 
ing me  to  stay  a  little  longer,  I  should  have  returned  it 
by  telling  you  I  was  sorry  to  go.  As  it  is,  I  mean  to  be 
sulky  and  say  nothing." 

With  those  words  she  took  up  her  pen  to  begin  the 
letter. 

"  Wait  a  minute,"  I  remonstrated.  "  I  was  just  on 
the  point  of  begging  you  to  stay  when  I  spoke." 

"Were  you,  indeed?"  she  returned.  "I  never  be- 
lieved in  coincidences  of  that  sort  before,  but  now,  of 
course,  I  put  the  most  unlimited  faith  in  them !" 

"  Will  you  believe  in  plain  proofs  ?"  I  asked,  adopting 
her  humor.  "How  do  you  think  I  and  my  brothers 
have  been  employing  ourselves  all  day  to-day  and  all  day 
yesterday  ?  Guess  what  we  have  been  about." 

"  Congratulating  yourselves  in  secret  on  my  approach- 
ing departure,"  she  answered,  tapping  her  chin  saucily 
with  the  feather-end  of  her  pen. 

I  seized  the  opportunity  of  astonishing  her,  and  forth- 
with told  her  the  truth.  She  started  up  from  the  table, 
and  approached  me  with  the  eagerness  of  a  child,  her 
eyes  sparkling,  and  her  cheeks  flushed. 

"  Do  you  really  mean  it  ?"  she  said. 

I  assured  her  that  I  was  in  earnest.  She  thereupon 
not  only  expressed  an  interest  in  our  undertaking,  which 
was  evidently  sincere,  but,  with  characteristic  impatience, 
wanted  to  begin  the  first  evening's  reading  on  that  very 
night.  I  disappointed  her  sadly  by  explaining  that  we 
required  time  to  prepare  ourselves,  and  by  assuring  her 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  OO 

that  we  should  not  be  ready  for  the  next  live  days.  On 
*he  sixth  day,  I  added,  we  should  be  able  to  begin,  and 
to  go  on,  without  missing  an  evening,  for  probably  ten 
days  more. 

"  The  next  five  days  ?"  she  repeated.  "  Why,  that 
will  just  bring  us  to  the  end  of  my  six  weeks'  visit.  I 
suppose  you  are  not  setting  a  trap  to  catch  me  ?  This  is 
not  a  trick  of  you  three  cunning  old  gentlemen  to  make 
me  stay  on,  is  it  ?" 

I  quailed  inwardly  as  that  dangerously  close  guess  at 
the  truth  passed  her  lips. 

"  You  forget,"  I  said,  "  that  the  idea  only  occurred  to 
me  after  what  you  said  yesterday.  If  it  had  struck  me 
earlier,  we  should  have  been  ready  earlier,  and  then  where 
would  your  suspicions  have  been  ?" 

"  I  am  ashamed  of  having  felt  them,"  she  said,  in  her 
frank,  hearty  way.  "I  retract  the  word  'trap,'  and  I 
beg  pardon  for  calling  you '  three  cunning  old  gentlemen.' 
But  what  am  I  to  say  to  my  aunt  ?" 

She  moved  back  to  the  writing-table  as  she  spoke. 

"Say  nothing,"  I  replied,  "  till  you  have  heard  the  first 
story.  Shut  up  the  paper-case  till  that  time,  and  then 
decide  when  you  will  open  it  again  to  write  to  your  aunt." 

She  hesitated  and  smiled.  That  terribly  close  guess 
of  hers  was  not  out  of  her  mind  yet. 

"  I  rather  fancy,"  she  said,  slyly,  "  that  the  first  story 
will  turn  out  to  be  the  best  of  the  whole  series." 

"  Wrong  again,"  I  retorted.  "  I  have  a  plan  for  letting 
chance  decide  which  of  the  stories  the  first  one  shall  be. 
They  shall  be  all  numbered  as  they  are  done  ;  correspond- 
ing numbers  shall  be  written  inside  folded  pieces  of  card 
and  well  mixed  together ;  you  shall  pick  out  any  one  card 
you  like ;  you  shall  declare  the  number  written  within ; 
and,  good  or  bad,  the  story  that  answers  to  that  number 
shall  be  the  story  that  is  read.  Is  that  fair?" 

3* 


56  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

"  Fair !"  she  exclaimed ;  "  it's  better  than  fair ;  it  makes 
me  of  some  importance ;  and  I  must  be  more  or  less  than 
woman  not  to  appreciate  that." 

"  Then  you  consent  to  wait  patiently  for  the  next  five 
days?" 

"As  patiently  as  I  can." 

"And  you  engage-to  decide  nothing  about  writing  to 
your  aunt  until  you  have  heard  the  first  story  ?" 

"  I  do,"  she  said,  returning  to  the  writing-table.  "  Be- 
hold the  proof  of  it."  She  raised  her  hand  with  theatri- 
cal solemnity,  and  closed  the  paper-case  with  an  impress- 
ive bang. 

I  leaned  back  in  my  chair  with  my  mind  at  ease  for 
the  first  time  since  the  receipt  of  my  son's  letter. 

"  Only  let  George  return  by  the  first  of  November,"  I 
thought  to  myself,  "and  all  the  aunts  in  Christendom 
shall  not  prevent  Jessie  Yelverton  from  being  here  to 
meet  him." 


THE    TEN    DAYS. 


THE  FIRST  DAY. 

SHOWERY  and  unsettled.  In  spite  of  the  weather, 
Jessie  put  on  my  Macintosh  cloak  and  rode  off  over  the 
hills  to  one  of  Owen's  outlying  farms.  She  was  already 
too  impatient  to  wait  quietly  for  the  evening's  reading 
in  the  house,  or  to  enjoy  any  amusement  less  exhilarat- 
ing than  a  gallop  in  the  open  air. 

I  was,  on  my  side,  as  anxious  and  as  uneasy  as  our 
guest.  Now  that  the  six  weeks  of  her  stay  had  expired 
— now  that  the  day  had  really  arrived,  on  the  evening 
of  which  the  first  story  was  to  be  read,  I  began  to  calcu- 
late the  chances  of  failure  as  well  as  the  chances  of  suc- 
cess. What  if  my  own  estimate  of  the  interest  of  the 
stories  turned  out  to  be  a  false  one  ?  What  if  some  un- 
foreseen accident  occurred  to  delay  my  son's  return  be- 
yond ten  days  ? 

The  arrival  of  the  newspaper  had  already  become  an 
event  of  the  deepest  importance  to  me.  Unreasonable 
as  it  was  to  expect  any  tidings  of  George  at  so  early  a 
date,  I  began,  nevertheless,  on  this  first  of  our  days  of 
suspense,  to  look  for  the  name  of  his  ship  in  the  columns 
of  telegraphic  news.  The  mere  mechanical  act  of  look- 
ing was  some  relief  to  my  overstrained  feelings,  although 
I  might  have  known,  and  did  know,  that  the  search,  for 
the  present,  could  lead  to  no  satisfactory  result. 

Toward  noon  I  shut  myself  up  with  my  collection  of 
manuscripts  to  revise  them  for  the  last  time.  Our  exer- 
tions had  thus  far  produced  but  six  of  the  necessary  ten 
stories.  As  they  were  only,  however,  to  be  read,  one  by 
one,  on  six  successive  evenings,  and  as  we  could  there- 


60  THE    QUEEX    OF   HEARTS. 

fore  count  on  plenty  of  leisure  in  the  daytime,  I  was  in 
no  fear  of  our  failing  to  finish  the  little  series. 

Of  the  six  completed  stories  I  had  written  two,  and 
had  found  a  third  in  the  form  of  a  collection  of  letters 
among  my  papers.  Morgan  had  only  written  one,  and 
this  solitary  contribution  of  his  had  given  me  more  trou- 
ble than  both  my  own  put  together,  in  consequence  of 
the  perpetual  intrusion  of  my  brother's  eccentricities  in 
every  part  of  his  narrative.  The  process  of  removing 
these  quaint  turns  and  frisks  of  Morgan's  humor — which, 
however  amusing  they  might  have  been  in  an  essay,  were 
utterly  out  of  place  in  a  story  appealing  to  suspended 
interest  for  its  effect — certainly  tried  my  patience  and 
my  critical  faculty  (such  as  it  is)  more  severely  than  any 
other  part  of  our  literary  enterprise  which  had  fallen  to 
my  share. 

Owen's  investigations  among  his  papers  had  supplied 
us  with  the  two  remaining  narratives.  One  was  con- 
tained in  a  letter,  and  the  other  in  the  form  of  a  diary, 
and  both  had  been  received  by  him  directly  from  the 
writers.  Besides  these  contributions,  he  had  undertaken 
to  help  us  by  some  work  of  his  own,  and  had  been  en- 
gaged for  the  last  four  days  in  moulding  certain  events 
which  had  happened  within  his  personal  knowledge  into 
the  form  of  a  story.  His  extreme  fastidiousness  as  a 
writer  interfered,  however,  so  seriously  with  his  progress 
that  he  was  still  sadly  behindhand,  and  was  likely,  though 
less  heavily  burdened  than  Morgan  or  myself,  to  be  the 
last  to  complete  his  allotted  task. 

Such  was  our  position,  and  such  the  resources  at  our 
command,  when  the  first  of  the  Ten  Days  dawned  upon 
us.  Shortly  after  four  in  the  afternoon  I  completed  my 
work  of  revision,  numbered  the  manuscripts  from  one  to 
six  exactly  as  they  happened  to  lie  under  my  hand,  and 
inclosed  them  all  in  a  port-folio,  covered  with  purple  mo- 


THE    IJUEEX    OF    HEARTS.  61 

rocco,  which  became  known  from  that  time  by  the  im- 
posing title  of  The  Purple  Volume. 

Miss  Jessie  returned  from  her  expedition  just  as  I  was 
tying  the  strings  of  the  port-folio,  and,  woman-like,  in- 
stantly asked  leave  to  peep  inside,  which  favor  I,  man- 
like, positively  declined  to  grant. 

As  soon  as  dinner  was  over  our  guest  retired  to  array 
herself  in  magnificent  evening  costume.  It  had  been  ar- 
ranged that  the  readings  were  to  take  place  in  her  own 
sitting-room ;  and  she  was  so  enthusiastically  desirous  to 
do  honor  to  the  occasion,  that  she  regretted  not  having 
brought  with  her  from  London  the  dress  in  which  she 
had  been  presented  at  court  the  year  before,  and  not  hav- 
ing borrowed  certain  materials  for  additional  splendor 
which  she  briefly  described  as  "  aunt's  diamonds." 

Toward  eight  o'clock  we  assembled  in  the  sitting- 
room,  and  a  strangely  assorted  company  we  were.  At 
the  head  of  the  table,  radiant  in  silk  and  jewelry,  flowers 
and  furbelows,  sat  The  Queen  of  Hearts,  looking  so  hand- 
some and  so  happy  that  I  secretly  congratulated  my  ab- 
sent son  on  the  excellent  taste  he  had  shown  in  falling  in 
love  with  her.  Round  this  bright  young  creature  (Owen 
at  the  foot  of  the  table,  and  Morgan  and  I  on  either  side) 
sat  her  three  wrinkled,  gray-headed,  dingily-attired  hosts, 
and  just  behind  her,  in  still  more  inappropriate  compan- 
ionship, towered  the  spectral  figure  of  the  man  in  armor, 
which  had  so  unaccountably  attracted  her  on  her  arrival. 
This  strange  scene  was  lighted  up  by  candles  in  high 
and  heavy  brass  sconces.  Before  Jessie  stood  a  mighty 
china  punch-bowl  of  the  olden  time,  containing  the  fold- 
ed pieces  of  card,  inside  which  were  written  the  numbers 
to  be  drawn,  and  before  Owen  reposed  the  Purple  Vol- 
ume from  which  one  of  us  was  to  read.  The  walls  of 
the  room  were  hung  all  round  with  faded  tapestry ;  the 
clumsy  furniture  was  black  with  age ;  and,  in  spite  of 


02  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

the  light  from  the  sconces,  the  lofty  ceiling  was  almost 
lost  in  gloom.  If  Rembrandt  could  have  painted  our 
background,  Reynolds  our  guest,  and  Hogarth  ourselves, 
the  picture  of  the  scene  would  have  been  complete. 

When  the  old  clock  over  the  tower  gateway  had 
chimed  eight,  I  rose  to  inaugurate  the  proceedings  by 
requesting  Jessie  to  take  one  of  the  pieces  of  card  out 
of  the  punch-bowl,  and  to  declare  the  number. 

She  laughed;  then  suddenly  became  frightened  and 
serious ;  then  looked  at  me,  and  said,  "  It  was  dreadfully 
like  business ;"  and  then  entreated  Morgan  not  to  stare 
at  her,  or,  in  the  present  state  of  her  nerves,  she  should 
upset  the  punch-bowl.  At  last  she  summoned  resolution 
enough  to  take  out  one  of  the  pieces  of  card  and  to  un- 
fold it. 

"  Declare  the  number,  my  dear,"  said  Owen. 

"  Number  Four,"  answered  Jessie,  making  a  magnifi- 
cent courtesy,  and  beginning  to  look  like  herself  again. 

Owen  opened  the  Purple  Volume,  searched  through 
the  manuscripts,  and  suddenly  changed  color.  The 
cause  of  his  discomposure  was  soon  explained.  Mali- 
cious fate  had  assigned  to  the  most  diffident  individual 
in  the  company  the  trying  responsibility  of  leading  the 
way.  Number  Four  was  one  of  the  two  narratives 
which  Owen  had  found  among  his  own  papers. 

"I  am  almost  sorry,"  began  my  eldest  brother,  con- 
fusedly, "  that  it  has  fallen  to  my  turn  to  read  first.  .1 
hardly  knowr  which  I  distrust  most,  myself  or  my  story." 

"Try  and  fancy  you  are  in  the  pulpit  again,"  said 
Morgan,  sarcastically.  "  Gentlemen  of  your  cloth,  Owen, 
seldom  seem  to  distrust  themselves  or  their  manuscripts 
when  they  get  into  that  position." 

"The  fact  is,"  continued  Owen,  mildly  impenetrable 
to  his  brother's  cynical  remark,  "  that  the  little  thing  I 
am  going  to  try  and  read  is  hardly  a  story  at  all.  I  am 


THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS.  63 

afraid  it  is  only  an  anecdote.  I  became  possessed  of  the 
letter  which  contains  my  narrative  under  these  circum- 
stances. At  the  time  when  I  was  a  clergyman  in  Lou- 
don,  my  church  was  attended  for  some  months  by  a  lady 
who  was  the  wife  of  a  large  farmer  in  the  country.  She 
had  been  obliged  to  come  to  town,  and  to  remain  there 
for  the  sake  of  one  of  her  children,  a  little  boy,  who  re- 
quired the  best  medical  advice." 

At  the  words  "  medical  advice"  Morgan  shook  his 
head,  and  growled  to  himself  contemptuously.  Owen 
went  on : 

"  While  she  was  attending  in  this  way  to  one  child, 
his  share  in  her  love  was  unexpectedly  disputed  by 
another,  who  came  into  the  world  rather  before  his  time. 
I  baptized  the  baby,  and  was  asked  to  the  little  christen- 
ing party  afterward.  This  Avas  my  first  introduction  to 
the  lady,  and  I  was  very  favorably  impressed  by  her; 
not  so  much  on  account  of  her  personal  appearance,  for 
she  was  but  a  little  woman  and  had  no  pretensions  to 
beauty,  as  on  account  of  a  certain  simplicity,  and  hearty, 
downright  kindness  in  her  manner,  as  well  as  of  an  ex- 
cellent frankness  and  good  sense  in  her  conversation. 
One  of  the  guests  present,  who  saw  how  she  had  inter- 
ested me,  and  who  spoke  of  her  in  the  highest  terms, 
surprised  me  by  inquiring  if  I  should  ever  have  supposed 
that  quiet,  good-humored  little  woman  to  be  capable  of 
performing  an  act  of  courage  which  Avould  have  tried 
the  nerves  of  the  boldest  man  in  England  ?  I  naturally 
enough  begged  for  an  explanation  ;  but  my  neighbor  at 
the  table  only  smiled  and  said,  'If  you  can  find  an  oppor- 
tunity, ask  her  what  happened  at  The  Black  Cottage, 
and  you  will  hear  something  that  will  astonish  you.'  I 
acted  on  the  hint  as  soon  as  I  had  an  opportunity  of 
speaking  to  her  privately.  The  lady  answered  that  it 
was  too  long  a  story  to  tell  then,  and  explained,  on  my 


64  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

suggesting  that  she  should  relate  it  on  some  future  day, 
that  she  was  about  to  start  for  her  country  home  the 
next  morning.  '  But,'  she  was  good  enough  to  add,  '  as 
I  have  been  under  great  obligations  to  you  for  many 
Sundays  past,  and  as  you  seem  interested  in  this  matter, 
I  will  employ  my  first  leisure  time  after  my  return  in 
telling  you  by  writing,  instead  of  by  word  of  mouth, 
what  really  happened  to  me  on  one  memorable  night  of 
my  life  in  The  Black  Cottage.' 

"  She  faithfully  performed  her  promise.  In  a  fortnight 
afterward  I  received  from  her  the  narrative  which  I  am 
now  about  to  read." 


THE   QUEEN   OF   HEARTS.  65 


BROTHER  OWEN'S  STORY 

OF 

THE  SIEGE  OF  THE  BLACK  COTTAGE. 


To  begin  at  the  beginning,  I  must  take  you  back  to 
the  time  after  my  mother's  death,  when  my  only  brother 
had  gone  to  sea,  when  my  sister  was  out  at  service,  and 
when  I  lived  alone  with  my  father  in  the  midst  of  a  moor 
in  the  west  of  England. 

The  moor  was  covered  with  great  limestone  rocks, 
and  intersected  here  and  there  by  streamlets.  The  near- 
est habitation  to  ours  was  situated  about  a  mile  and  a 
half  off,  where  a  strip  of  the  fertile  land  stretched  out 
into  the  waste  like  a  tongue.  Here  the  out-buildings  of 
the  great  Moor  Farm  then  in  the  possession  of  my  hus- 
band's father,  began.  The  farm-lands  stretched  down 
gently  into  a  beautiful  rich  valley,  lying  nicely  sheltered 
by  the  high  platform  of  the  moor.  When  the  ground 
began  to  rise  again,  miles  and  miles  away,  it  led  up  to  a 
country  house  called  Holme  Manor,  belonging  to  a  gen- 
tleman named  Knifton.  Mr.  Knifton  had  lately  married 
a  young  lady  whom  my  mother  had  nursed,  and  whose 
kindness  and  friendship  for  me,  her  foster-sister,  I  shall 
remember  gratefully  to  the  last  day  of  my  life.  These 
and  other  slight  particulars  it  is  necessary  to  my  story 
that  I  should  tell  you,  and  it  is  also  necessary  that  you 
should  be  especially  careful  to  bear  them  well  in  mind. 

My  father  was  by  trade  a  stone-mason.  His  cottage 
stood  a  mile  and  a  half  from  the  nearest  habitation.  In 
all  other  directions  we  were  four  or  five  times  that  dis' 


66  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEAKTS. 

tance  from  neighbors.  Being  very  poor  people,  this 
lonely  situation  had  one  great  attraction  for  us — we 
lived  rent  free  on  it.  In  addition  to  that  advantage,  the 
stones,  by  shaping  which  my  lather  gained  his  liveli- 
hood, lay  all  about  him  at  his  very  door,  so  that  he 
thought  his  position,  solitary  as  it  was,  quite  an  enviable 
one.  I  can  hardly  say  that  I  agreed  with  him,  though  I 
never  complained.  I  was  very  fond  of  my  father,  and 
managed  to  make  the  best  of  my  loneliness  with  the 
thought  of  being  useful  to  him.  Mrs.  Knifton  wished 
to  take  me  into  her  service  when  she  married,  but  I  de- 
clined, unwillingly  enough,  for  my  father's  sake.  If  I 
had  gone  away,  he  would  have  had  nobody  to  live  with 
him  ;  and  my  mother  made  me  promise  on  her  death-bed 
that  he  should  never  be  left  to  pine  away  alone  in  the 
midst  of  the  bleak  moor. 

Our  cottage,  small  as  it  was,  was  stoutly  and  snugly 
built,  with  stone  from  the  moor  as  a  matter  of  course. 
The  walls  were  lined  inside  and  fenced  outside  with 
wood,  the  gift  of  Mr.  Knifton's  father  to  my  father. 
This  double  covering  of  cracks  and  crevices,  which  would 
have  been  superfluous  in  a  sheltered  position,  was  abso- 
lutely necessary,  in  our  exposed  situation,  to  keep  out 
the  cold  winds  which,  excepting  just  the  summer  months. 
swept  over  us  continually  all  the  year  round.  The  out- 
side boards,  covering  our  roughly-built  stone  walls,  my 
father  protected  against  the  wet  with  pitch  and  tar. 
This  gave  to  our  little  abode  a  curiously  dark,  dingy 
look,  especially  when  it  was  seen  from  a  distance ;  and 
so  it  had  come  to  be  called  in  the  neighborhood,  even 
before  I  was  born,  The  Black  C'ottage. 

I  have  now  related  the  preliminary  particulars  which 
it  is  desirable  that  you  should  know,  and  may  proceed 
at  once  to  the  pleasanter  task  of  telling  you  my  story. 

One  cloudy  autumn  day,  when  I  was  rather  more  than 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  67 

eighteen  years  old,  a  herdsman  walked  over  from  Moor 
Farm  with  a  letter  which  had  been  left  there  for  my 
father.  It  came  from  a  builder  living  at  our  county 
town,  half  a  day's  journey  off,  and  it  invited  my  father 
to  come  to  him  and  gi\;e  his  judgment  about  an  estimate 
for  some  stone-work  on  a  very  large  scale.  My  father's 
expenses  for  loss  of  time  were  to  be  paid,  and  he  was  to 
have  his  share  of  employment  afterward  in  preparing  the 
stone.  He  was  only  too  glad,  therefore,  to  obey  the  di- 
rections which  the  letter  contained,  and  to  prepare  at 
once  for  his  long  walk  to  the  county  town. 

Considering  the  time  at  which  he  received  the  letter, 
and  the  necessity  of  resting  before  he  attempted  to  re- 
turn, it  was  impossible  for  him  to  avoid  being  away  from 
home  for  one  night,  at  least.  He  proposed  to  me,  in 
case  I  disliked  being  left  alone  in  the  Black  Cottage,  to 
lock  the  door  and  to  take  me  to  Moor  Farm  to  sleep 
with  any  one  of  the  milkmaids  who  would  give  me  a 
share  of  her  bed.  I  by  no  means  liked  the  notion  of 
sleeping  with  a  girl  whom  I  did  not  know,  and  I  saw  no 
reason  to  feel  afraid  of  being  left  alone  for  only  one 
night ;  so  I  declined.  No  thieves  had  ever  come  near 
us ;  our  poverty  wTas  sufficient  protection  against  them ; 
and  of  other  dangers  there  Avere  none  that  even  the  most 
timid  person  could  apprehend.  Accordingly,  I  got  my 
father's  dinner,  laughing  at  the  notion  of  my  taking  ref- 
uge under  the  protection  of  a  milkmaid  at  Moor  Farm. 
He  started  for  his  walk  as  soon  as  he  had  done,  saying 
he  should  try  and  be  back  by  dinner-time  the  next  day, 
and  leaving  me  and  my  cat  Polly  to  take  care  of  the 
house. 

I  had  cleared  the  table  and  brightened  up  the  fire,  and 
had  sat  down  to  my  work  writh  the  cat  dozing  at  my 
feet,  when  I  heard  the  trampling  of  horses,  and,  running 
to  the  door,  saw  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Knifton,  with  their  groom 


68  THE    QTJEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

behind  them,  riding  up  to  the  Black  Cottage.  It  was 
part  of  the  young  lady's  kindness  never  to  neglect  an 
opportunity  of  coming  to  pay  me  a  friendly  visit,  and 
her  husband  was  generally  willing  to  accompany  her  for 
his  wife's  sake.  I  made  my  best  courtesy,  therefore,  with 
a  great  deal  of  pleasure,  but  with  no  particular  surprise 
at  seeing  them.  They  dismounted  and  entered  the  cot- 
tage, laughing  and  talking  in  -great  spirits.  I  soon  heard 
that  they  were  riding  to  the  same  county  town  for  which 
my  father  was  bound,  and  that  they  intended  to  stay 
with  some  friends  there  for  a  few  days,  and  to  return 
home  on  horseback,  as  they  went  out. 

I  heard  this,  and  I  also  discovered  that  they  had  been 
having  an  argument,  in  jest,  about  money-matters,  as 
they  rode  along  to  our  cottage.  Mrs.  Knifton  had  ac- 
cused her  husband  of  inveterate  extravagance,  and  of 
never  being  able  to  go  out  with  money  in  his  pocket 
without  spending  it  all,  if  he  possibly  could,  before  he 
got  home  again.  Mr.  Knifton  had  laughingly  defended 
himself  by  declaring  that  all  his  pocket-money  went  in 
presents  for  his  wife,  and  that,  if  he  spent  it  lavishly,  it 
was  under  her  sole  influence  and  superintendence. 

"We  are  going  to  divert  on  now,"  he  said  to  Mrs. 
Knifton,  naming  the  county  town,  and  warming  himself 
at  our  poor  fire  just  as  pleasantly  as  if  he  had  been  stand- 
ing on  his  own  grand  hearth.  "  You  will  stop  to  admire 
every  pretty  thing  in  every  one  of  the  Cliverton  shop- 
windows  ;  I  shall  hand  you  the  purse,  and  you  will  go  in 
and  buy.  When  we  have  reached  home  again,  and  you 
have  had  time  to  get  tired  of  your  purchases,  you  will 
clasp  your  hands  in  amazement,  and  declare  that  you  are 
quite  shocked  at  my  habits  of  inveterate  extravagance. 
I  am  only  the  banker  who  keeps  the  money;  you,  my 
love,  are  the  spendthrift  who  throws  it  all  away !" 

"  Am  I,  sir  ?"  said  Mrs.  Knifton,  with  a  look  of  mock 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  69 

indignation.  "  "We  will  see  if  I  am  to  be  misrepresented 
in  this  way  with  impunity.  Bessie,  my  dear"  (turning 
to  me),  "  you  shall  judge  how  far  I  deserve  the  character 
which  that  unscrupulous  man  has  just  given  to  me.  I 
am  the  spendthrift,  am  I  ?  And  you  are  only  the  banker  ? 
Very  well.  Banker,  give  me  my  money  at  once,  if  you 
please." 

Mr.  Knifton  laughed,  and  took  some  gold  and  silver 
from  his  waistcoat  pocket. 

"  No,  no,"  said  Mrs.  Knifton,  "  you  may  want  what 
you  have  got  there  for  necessary  expenses.  Is  that  all 
the  money  you  have  about  you  ?  What  do  I  feel  here  ?" 
and  she  tapped  her  husband  on  the  chest,  just  over  the 
breast-pocket  of  his  coat. 

Mr.  Knifton  laughed  again,  and  produced  his  pocket- 
book.  His  wife  snatched  it  out  of  his  hand,  opened  it, 
and  drew  out  some  bank-notes,  put  them  back  again  im- 
mediately, and,  closing  the  pocket-book,  stepped  across 
the  room  to  my  poor  mother's  little  walnut-wood  book- 
case, the  only  bit  of  valuable  furniture  we  had  in  the 
house. 

"  What  are  you  going  to  do  there  ?"  asked  Mr.  Knifton, 
following  his  wife. 

Mrs.  Knifton  opened  the  glass  door  of  the  bookcase, 
put  the  pocket-book  in  a  vacant  place  on  one  of  the 
lower  shelves,  closed  and  locked  the  door  again,  and 
gave  me  the  key. 

"You  called  me  a  spendthrift  just  now,"  she  said. 
"  There  is  my  answer.  Not  one  farthing  of  that  money 
shall  you  spend  at  Cliverton  on  me.  Keep  the  key  in 
your  pocket,  Bessie,  and,  whatever  Mr.  Knifton  may  say, 
on  no  account  let  him  have  it  until  we  call  again  on  our 
way  back.  No,  sir,  I  won't  trust  you  with  that  money 
in  your  pocket  in  the  town  of  Cliverton.  I  will  make 
sure  of  your  taking  it  all  home  again,  by  leaving  it  here 


70  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

in  more  trustworthy  hands  than  yours  until  we  ride  back. 
Bessie,  my  dear,  what  do  you  say  to  that  as  a  lesson  in 
economy  inflicted  on  a  prudent  husband  by  a  spendthrift 
wife  ?" 

She  took  Mr.  Knifton's  arm  while  she  spoke,  and  drew 
him  away  to  the  door.  He  protested  and  made  some 
resistance,  but  she  easily  carried  her  point,  for  he  was 
far  too  fond  of  her  to  have  a  will  of  his  own  in  any  tri- 
fling matter  between  them.  Whatever  the  men  might 
say,  Mr.  Knifton  was  a  model  husband  in  the  estimation 
of  all  the  women  who  knew  him. 

"  You  will  see  us  as  we  come  back,  Bessie.  Till  then, 
you  are  our  banker,  and  the  pocket-book  is  yours,"  cried 
Mrs.  Knifton,  gayly,  at  the  door.  Her  husband  lifted  her 
into  the  saddle,  mounted  himself,  and  away  they  both 
galloped  over  the  moor  as  wild  and  happy  as  a  couple  of 
children. 

Although  my  being  trusted  with  money  by  Mrs.  Knif- 
ton was  no  novelty  (in  her  maiden  days  she  always  em- 
ployed me  to  pay  her  dress-maker's  bills),  I  did  not  feel 
quite  easy  at  having  a  pocket-book  full  of  bank-notes  left 
by  her  in  my  charge.  I  had  no  positive  apprehensions 
about  the  safety  of  the  deposit  placed  in  my  hands,  but  it 
was  one  of  the  odd  points  in  my  character  then  (and  I 
think  it  is  still)  to  feel  an  unreasonably  strong  objection 
to  charging  myself  with  money  responsibilities  of  any 
kind,  even  to  suit  the  convenience  of  my  dearest  friends. 
As  soon  as  I  was  left  alone,  the  very  sight  of  the  pocket- 
book  behind  the  glass  door  of  the  bookcase  began  to 
worry  me,  and  instead  of  returning  to  my  work,  I  puz- 
zled my  brains  about  finding  a  place  to  lock  it  up  in, 
where  it  would  not  be  exposed  to  the  view  of  any  chance 
passers-by  who  might  stray  into  the  Black  Cottage. 

This  was  not  an  easy  matter  to  compass  in  a  poor 
house  like  ours,  where  we  had  nothing  valuable  to  put 


THE    QLEEX    OF    HEARTS.  71 

under  lock  and  key.  After  running  over  various  hiding- 
places  in  my  mind,  I  thought  of  my  tea-caddy,  a  present 
from  Mrs.  Knifton,  which  I  always  kept  out  of  harm's 
way  in  my  own  bedroom.  Most  unluckily — as  it  after- 
ward turned  out — instead  of  taking  the  pocket-book  to 
the  tea-caddy,  I  went  into  my  room  first  to  take  the  tea- 
caddy  to  the  pocket-book.  I  only  acted  in  this  rounda- 
bout way  from  sheer  thoughtlessness,  and  severely  enough 
I  was  punished  for  it,  as  you  will  acknowledge  yourself 
when  you  have  read  a  page  or  two  more  of  my  story. 

I  was  just  getting  the  unlucky  tea-caddy  out  of  my 
cupboard,  when  I  heard  footsteps  in  the  passage,  and, 
running  out  immediately,  sawr  tAVO  men  walk  into  the 
kitchen — the  room  in  which  I  had  received  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Knifton.  I  inquired  what  they  wanted  sharply  enough, 
and  one  of  them  answered  immediately  that  they  wanted 
my  father.  He  turned  toward  me,  of  course,  as  he  spoke, 
and  I  recognized  him  as  a  stone-mason,  going  among  his 
comrades  by  the  name  of  Shifty  Dick.  He  bore  a  very 
bad  character  for  every  thing  but  wrestling,  a  sport  for 
which  the  working  men  of  our  parts  were  famous  all 
through  the  county.  Shifty  Dick  was  champion,  and  he 
had  got  his  name  from  some  tricks  in  wrestling,  for  which 
he  was  celebrated.  He  was  a  tall,  heavy  man,  with  a 
lowering,  scarred  face,  and  huge  hairy  hands — the  last 
visitor  in  the  whole  world  that  I  should  have  been  glad 
to  see  under  any  circumstances.  His  companion  was  a 
stranger,  whom  he  addressed  by  the  name  of  Jerry — a 
quick,  dapper,  wicked-looking  man,  who  took  off  his  cap 
to  me  with  mock  politeness,  and  showed,  in  so  doing,  a 
very  bald  head,  with  some  very  ugly-looking  knobs  on  it. 
I  distrusted  him  worse  than  I  did  Shifty  Dick,  and  man- 
aged to  get  between  his  leering  eyes  and  the  bookcase, 
as  I  told  the  two  that  my  father  was  gone  out,  and  that 
I  did  not  expect  him  back  till  the  next  day. 

4 


72  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

The  words  were  hardly  out  of  ray  mouth  before  I  re- 
pented that  my  anxiety  to  get  rid  of  my  unwelcome  vi»- 
itors  had  made  me  incautious  enough  to  acknowledge 
that  my  father  would  be  away  from  home  for  the  whole 
night. 

Shifty  Dick  and  his  companion  looked  at  each  other 
when  I  unwisely  let  out  the  truth,  but  made  no  remark 
except  to  ask  me  if  I  would  give  them  a  drop  of  cider. 
I  answered  sharply  that  I  had  no  cider  in  the  house,  hav- 
ing no  fear  of  the  consequences  of  refusing  them  drink, 
because  I  knew  that  plenty  of  men  were  at  work  within 
hail,  in  a  neighboring  quarry.  The  two  looked  at  each 
other  again  when  I  denied  having  any  cider  to  give 
them ;  and  Jerry  (as  I  am  obliged  to  call  him,  knowing 
no  other  name  by  which  to  distinguish  the  fellow)  took 
off  his  cap  to  me  once  more,  and,  with  a  kind  of  black- 
guard gentility  upon  him,  said  they  would  have  the  pleas- 
ure of  calling  the  next  day,  when  my  father  was  at  home. 
I  said  good  afternoon  as  ungraciously  as  possible,  and, 
to  my  great  relief,  they  both  left  the  cottage  immediate- 
ly afterward. 

As  soon  as  they  were  well  away,  I  watched  them  from 
the  door.  They  trudged  off  in  the  direction  of  Moor 
Farm ;  and,  as  it  was  beginning  to  get  dusk,  I  soon  lost 
sight  of  them. 

Half  an  hour  afterward  I  looked  out  again. 

The  wind  had  lulled  with  the  sunset,  but  the  mist  was 
rising,  and  a  heavy  ram  was  beginning  to  fall.  Never 
did  the  lonely  prospect  of  the  moor  look  so  dreary  as  it 
looked  to  my  eyes  that  evening.  Never  did  I  regret 
any  slight  thing  more  sincerely  than  I  then  regretted  the 
leaving  of  Mr.  Knifton's  pocket-book  in  my  charge.  I 
can  not  say  that  I  suffered  under  any  actual  alarm,  ^br  I 
felt  next  to  certain  that  neither  Shifty  Dick  nor  Jerry 
had  got  a  chance  of  setting  eyes  on  so  small  a  thing  as 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  73 

the  pocket-book  while  they  were  in  the  kitchen ;  but 
there  was  a  kind  of  vague  distrust  troubling  me — a  sus- 
picion of  the  night — a  dislike  of  being  left  by  myself, 
which  I  never  remember  having  experienced  before. 
This  feeling  so  increased  after  I  had  closed  the  door  and 
gone  back  to  the  kitchen,  that,  when  I  heard  the  voices 
of  the  quarry  men  as  they  passed  our  cottage  on  their 
way  home  to  the  village  in  the  valley  below  Moor  Farm, 
I  stepped  out  into  the  passage  with  a  momentary  notion 
of  telling  them  how  I  was  situated,  and  asking  them  for 
advice  and  protection. 

I  had  hardly  formed  this  idea,  however,  before  I  dis- 
missed it.  None  of  the  quarrymen  were  intimate  friends 
of  mine.  I  had  a  nodding  acquaintance  with  them,  and 
believed  them  to  be  honest  men,  as  times  went.  But  my 
own  common  sense  told  me  that  what  little  knowledge 
of  their  characters  I  had  was  by  no  means  sufficient  to 
warrant  me  in  admitting  them  into  my  confidence  in  the 
matter  of  the  pocket-book.  I  had  seen  enough  of  pover- 
ty and  poor  men  to  know  what  a  terrible  temptation  a 
large  sum  of  money  is  to  those  whose  whole  lives  are 
passed  in  scraping  up  sixpences  by  weary  hard  work.  It 
is  one  thing  to  write  fine  sentiments  in  books  about  in- 
corruptible honesty,  and  another  thing  to  put  those  sen- 
timents in  practice  when  one  day's  work  is  all  that  a  man 
has  to  set  up  in  the  way  of  an  obstacle  between  starva- 
tion and  his  own  fireside. 

The  only  resource  that  remained  was  to  carry  the 
pocket-book  with  me  to  Moor  Farm,  and  ask  permission 
to  pass  the  night  there.  But  I  could  not  persuade  my- 
self that  there  was  any  real  necessity  for  taking  such  a 
course  as  this ;  and,  if  the  truth  must  be  told,  my  pride 
revolted  at  the  idea  of  presenting  myself  in  the  character 
of  a  coward  before  the  people  at  the  farm.  Timidity  is 
thought  rather  a  graceful  attraction  among  ladies,  but 


74  THE    QUEEN-  OF    HEARTS. 

among  poor  women  it  is  something  to  be  laughed  at.  A 
woman  with  less  spirit  of  her  own  than  I  had,  and  al- 
ways shall  have,  would  have  considered  twice  in  my  sit- 
uation before  she  made  up  her  mind  to  encounter  the 
jokes  of  plowmen  and  the  jeers  of  milkmaids.  As  for 
me,  I  had  hardly  considered  about  going  to  the  farm  be- 
fore I  despised  myself  for  entertaining  any  such  notion. 
"  No,  no,"  thought  I,  "  I  am  not  the  woman  to  walk  a 
mile  and  a  half  through  rain,  and  mist,  and  darkness,  to 
tell  a  whole  kitchenful  of  people  that  I  am  afraid.  Come 
what  may,  here  I  stop  till  father  gets  back." 

Having  arrived  at  that  valiant  resolution,  the  first  thing 
I  did  was  to  lock  and  bolt  the  back  and  front  doors,  and 
see  to  the  security  of  every  shutter  in  the  house. 

That  duty  performed,  I  made  a  blazing  fire,  lighted 
my  candle,  and  sat  down  to  tea,  as  snug  and  comfortable 
as  possible.  I  could  hardly  believe  now,  with  the  light 
in  the  room,  and  the  sense  of  security  inspired  by  the 
closed  doors  and  shutters,  that  I  had  ever  felt  even  the 
slightest  apprehension  earlier  in  the  day.  I  sang  as  I 
washed  up  the  tea-things ;  and  even  the  cat  seemed  to 
catch  the  infection  of  my  good  spirits.  I  never  knew 
the  pretty  creature  so  playful  as  she  was  that  even- 
ing. 

The  tea-things  put  by,  I  took  up  my  knitting,  and 
worked  away  at  it  so  long  that  I  began  at  last  to  get 
drowsy.  The  fire  was  so  bright  and  comforting  that  I 
could  not  muster  resolution  enough  to  leave  it  and  go  to 
bed.  I  sat  staring  lazily  into  the  blaze,  with  my  knitting 
on  my  lap — sat  till  the  splashing  of  the  rain  outside,  and 
the  fitful,  sullen  sobbing  of  the  wind  grew  fainter  and 
fainter  on  my  ear.  The  last  sounds  I  heard  before  I  fair- 
ly dozed  off  to  sleep  were  the  cheerful  crackling  of  the 
fire  and  the  steady  purring  of  the  cat,  as  she  basked  lux- 
uriously in  the  warm  light  on  the  hearth.  Those  were 


THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS.  75 

the  last  sounds  before  I  fell  asleep.  The  sound  that 
woke  me  was  one  loud  bang  at  the  front  door. 

I  started  up,  with  my  heart  (as  the  saying  is)  in  my 
mouth,  with  a  frightful  momentary  shuddering  at  the 
roots  of  my  hair — I  started  up  breathless,  cold,  and  mo- 
tionless, waiting  in  the  silence  I  hardly  knew  for  what, 
doubtful  at  first  whether  I  had  dreamed  about  the  bang 
at  the  door,  or  whether  the  blow  had  really  been  struck 
on  it. 

In  a  minute  or  less  there  came  a  second  bang,  louder 
than  the  first.  I  ran  out  into  the  passage. 

"  Who's  there  ?" 

"  Let  us  in,"  answered  a  voice,  which  I  recognized  im- 
mediately as  the  voice  of  Shifty  Dick. 

f' Wait  a  bit,  my  dear,  and  let  me  explain,"  said  a  sec- 
ond voice,  in  the  low,  oily,  jeering  tones  of  Dick's  com- 
panion— the  wickedly  clever  little  man  whom  he  called 
Jerry.  "  You  are  alone  in  the  house,,  my  pretty  little 
dear.  You  may  crack  your  sweet  voice  with  screeching, 
and  there's  nobody  near  to  hear  you.  Listen  to  reason, 
my  love,  and  let  us  in.  We  don't  want  cider  this  time — 
we  only  want  a  very  neat-looking  pocket-book  which  you 
happen  to  have,  and  your  late  excellent  mother's  four 
silver  teaspoons,  which  you  keep  so  nice  and  clean  on 
the  chimney-piece.  If  you  let  us  in  we  won't  hurt  a 
hair  of  your  head,  my  cherub,  and  we  promise  to  go 
away  the  moment  we  have  got  what  we  want,  unless  you 
particularly  wish  us  to  stop  to  tea.  If  you  keep  us  out, 
we  shall  be  obliged  to  break  into  the  house,  and  then — " 

"  And  then,"  burst  in  Shifty  Dick,  "  we'll  mash  you !" 

"  Yes,"  said  Jerry,  "  we'll  mash  you,  my  beauty.  But 
you  won't  drive  us  to  doing  that,  will  you  ?  You  will 
let  us  in  ?" 

This  long  parley  gave  me  time  to  recover  the  effect 
which  the  first  bang  at  the  door  had  produced  on  my 


76  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

nerves.  The  threats  of  the  two  villains  would  have  ter- 
rified some  women  out  of  their  senses,  but  the  only  re- 
sult they  produced  on  me  was  violent  indignation.  I 
had,  thank  God,  a  strong  spirit  of  my  own,  and  the  cool, 
contemptuous  insolence  of  the  man  Jerry  effectually 
roused  it. 

"  You  cowardly  villains !"  I  screamed  at  them  through 
the  door.  "  You  think  you  can  frighten  me  because  I 
am  only  a  poor  girl  left  alone  in  the  house.  You  raga- 
muffin thieves,  I  defy  you  both!  Our  bolts  are  strong, 
our  shutters  are  thick.  I  am  here  to  keep  my  father's 
house  safe,  and  keep  it  I  will  against  an  army  of  you !" 

You  may  imagine  what  a  passion  I  was  in  when  I  va- 
pored and  blustered  in  that  way.  I  heard  Jerry  laugh, 
and  Shifty  Dick  swear  a  whole  mouthful  of  oaths.  Then 
there  was  a  dead  silence  for  a  minute  or  two,  and  then 
the  two  ruffians  attacked  the  door. 

I  rushed  into  the  kitchen  and  seized  the  poker,  and 
then  heaped  wood  on  the  fire,  and  lighted  all  the  candles 
I  could  find,  for  I  felt  as  though  I  could  keep  up  my 
courage  better  if  I  had  plenty  of  light.  Strange  and  im 
probable  as  it  may  appear,  the  next  thing  that  attracted 
my  attention  was  my  poor  pussy,  crouched  up,  panic- 
stricken,  in  a  corner.  I  was  so  fond  of  the  little  creature 
that  I  took  her  up  in  my  arms  and  carried  her  into  my 
bedroom,  and  put  her  inside  my  bed.  A  comical  thing 
to  do  in  a  situation  of  deadly  peril,  was  it  not  ?  But  it 
seemed  quite  natural  and  proper  at  the  time. 

All  this  while  the  blows  were  falling  faster  and  faster 
on  the  door.  They  were  dealt,  as  I  conjectured,  witli 
heavy  stones  picked  up  from  the  ground  outside.  Jerry 
sang  at  his  wicked  work,  and  Shifty  Dick  swore.  As  T 
left  the  bedroom  after  putting  tin-  cat  under  cover,  I 
heard  the  lower  panel  of  the  door  begin  to  crack. 

I  rail  into  the  kitchen  and  huddled  our  four  silver 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  77 

spoons  into  my  pocket ;  then  took  the  unlucky  book 
with  the  bank-notes  and  put  it  in  the  bosom  of  my  dress. 
I  was  determined  to  defend  the  property  confided  to  my 
care  with  my  life.  Just  as  I  had  secured  the  pocket- 
book  I  heard  the  door  splintering,  and  rushed  into  the 
passage  again  with  my  heavy  kitchen  poker  lifted  in 
both  hands. 

I  was  in  time  to  see  the  bald  head  of  Jerry,  with  the 
ugly-looking  knobs  on  it,  pushed  into  the  passage  through 
a  great  rent  in  one  of  the  lower  panels  of  the  door. 

"  Get  out,  you  villain,  or  I'll  brain  you  on  the  spot !"  I 
screeched,  threatening  him  with  the  poker. 

Mr.  Jerry  took  his  head  out  again  much  faster  than 
he  put  it  in. 

The  next  thing  that  came  through  the  rent  was  a  long 
pitchfork,  which  they  darted  at  me  from  the  outside,  to 
move  me  from  the  door.  I  struck  at  it  with  all  my 
might,  and  the  blow  must  have  jarred  the  hand  of  Shifty 
Dick  up  to  his  very  shoulder,  for  I  heard  him  give  a  roar 
of  rage  and  pain.  Before  he  could  catch  at  the  fork 
with  his  other  hand  I  had  drawn  it  inside.  By  this  time 
even  Jerry  lost  his  temper,  and  swore  more  awfully  than 
Dick  himself. 

Then  there  came  another  minute  of  respite.  I  suspect- 
ed they  had  gone  to  get  bigger  stones,  and  I  dreaded 
the  giving  way  of  the  whole  door. 

Running  into  the  bedroom  as  this  fear  beset  me,  I  laid 
hold  of  my  chest  of  drawers,  dragged  it  into  the  passage, 
and  threw  it  down  against  the  door.  On  the  top  of  that 
I  heaped  my  father's  big  tool  chest,  three  chairs,  and  a 
scuttleful  of  coals ;  and  last,  I  dragged  out  the  kitchen 
table  and  rammed  it  as  hard  as  I  could  against  the  whole 
barricade.  They  heard  me  as  they  were  coming  up  to 
the  door  with  fresh  stones.  Jerry  said,  "  Stop  a  bit !" 
and  then  the  two  consulted  together  in  whispers.  I 
listened  eagerly,  and  just  caught  these  words; 


78  TliE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

"  Let's  try  it  the  other  way." 

Nothing  more  was  said,  but  I  heard  their  footsteps  re- 
treating from  the  door. 

Were  they  going  to  besiege  the  back  door  now  ? 

I  had  hardly  asked  myself  that  question  when  I  heard 
their  voices  at  the  other  side  of  the  house.  The  back 
door  was  smaller  than  the  front,  but  it  had  this  advant- 
age in  the  way  of  strength — it  was  made  of  two  solid 
oak  boards  joined  lengthwise,  and  strengthened  inside 
by  heavy  cross  pieces.  It  had  no  bolts  like  the  front 
door,  but  was  fastened  by  a  bar  of  iron  running  across  it 
in  a  slanting  direction,  and  fitting  at  either  end  into  the 
wall. 

"  They  must  have  the  whole  cottage  down  before  they 
can  break  in  at  that  door !"  I  thought  to  myself.  And 
they  soon  found  out  as  much  for  themselves.  After  five 
minutes  of  banging  at  the  back  door  they  gave  up  any 
farther  attack  in  that  direction,  and  cast  their  heavy 
stones  down  with  curses  of  fury  awful  to  hear. 

I  went  into  the  kitchen  and  dropped  on  the  window- 
seat  to  rest  for  a  moment.  Suspense  and  excitement  to- 
gether were  beginning  to  tell  upon  me.  The  perspira- 
tion broke  out  thick  on  my  forehead,  and  I  began  to  feel 
the  bruises  I  had  inflicted  on  my  hands  in  making  the 
barricade  against  the  front  door.  I  had  not  lost  a  par- 
ticle of  my  resolution,  but  I  was  beginning  to  lose 
strength.  There  was  a  bottle  of  rum  in  the  cupboard, 
which  my  brother  the  sailor  had  left  Avith  us  the  last 
time  he  Avas  ashore.  I  drank  a  drop  of  it.  Never  before 
or  since  have  I  put  any  thing  doAvn  my  throat  that  did 
me  half  so  much  good  as  that  precious  mouthful  of  rum ! 

I  was  still  sitting  in  the  AvindoAV-seat  drying  my  face, 
when  I  suddenly  heard  their  voices  close  behind  me. 

They  were  feeling  the  outside  of  the  Avindow  against 
which  I  was  sitting.  It  Avas  protected,  like  all  the  other 


THE    0.1'EEN    OF    HEAKTS.  79 

windows  in  the  cottage,  by  iron  bars.  I  listened  in 
dreadful  suspense  for  the  sound  of  filing,  but  nothing  of 
the  sort  was  audible.  They  had  evidently  reckoned  on 
frightening  me  easily  into  letting  them  in,  and  had  come 
unprovided  with  house-breaking  tools  of  any  kind.  A 
fresh  burst  of  oaths  informed  me  that  they  had  recog- 
nized the  obstacle  of  the  iron  bars.  I  listened  breath- 
lessly for  some  warning  of  what  they  were  going  to  do 
next,  but  their  voices  seemed  to  die  away  in  the  distance. 
They  were  retreating  from  the  window.  Were  they 
also  retreating  from  the  house  altogether?  Had  they 
given  up  the  idea  of  effecting  an  entrance  in  despair  ? 

A  long  silence  followed  —  a  silence  which  tried  my 
courage  even  more  severely  than  the  tumult  of  their  first 
attack  on  the  cottage. 

Dreadful  suspicions  now  beset  me  of  their  being  able 
to  accomplish  by  treachery  what  they  had  failed  to  effect 
by  force.  Well  as  I  knew  the  cottage,  I  began  to  doubt 
whether  there  might  not  be  ways  of  cunningly  and  si- 
lently entering  it  against  which  I  was  not  provided. 
The  ticking  of  the  clock  annoyed  me ;  the  crackling  of 
the  fire  startled  me.  I  looked  out  twenty  times  in  a 
minute  into  the  dark  corners  of  the  passage,  straining  my 
eyes,  holding  my  breath,  anticipating  the  most  unlikely 
events,  the  most  impossible  dangers.  Had  they  really 
gone,  or  were  they  still  prowling  about  the  house  ?  Oh, 
what  a  sum  of  money  I  would  have  given  only  to  have 
known  what  they  were  about  in  that  interval  of  silence ! 

I  was  startled  at  last  out  of  my  suspense  in  the  most 
awful  manner.  A  shout  from  one  of  them  reached  my 
ears  on  a  sudden  down  the  kitchen  chimney.  It  was  so 
unexpected  and  so  horrible  in  the  stillness  that  I  scream- 
ed for  the  first  time  since  the  attack  on  the  house.  My 
worst  forebodings  had  never  suggested  to  me  that  the 
two  villains  might  mount  upon  the  roof. 

4* 


80  THE    QUEE2?    OF    HEARTS. 

"  Let  us  in,  you  she  devil !"  roared  a  voice  down  the 
chimney. 

There  was  another  pause.  The  smoke  from  the  wood 
fire,  thin  and  light  as  it  was  in  the  red  state  of  the  em- 
bers at  that  moment,  had  evidently  obliged  the  man  to 
take  his  face  from  the  mouth  of  the  chimney.  I  counted 
the  seconds  while  he  was,  as  I  conjectured,  getting  his 
breath  again.  In  less  than  half  a  minute  there  came 
another  shout : 

"  Let  us  in,  or  we'll  burn  the  place  down  over  your 
head!" 

Burn  it?  Burn  what?  There  was  nothing  easily 
combustible  but  the  thatch  on  the  roof;  and  that  had 
been  well  soaked  by  the  heavy  rain  which  had  now  fallen 
incessantly  for  more  than  six  hours.  Burn  the  place 
over  my  head  ?  How  ? 

While  I  was  still  casting  about  wildly  in  my  mind  to 
discover  what  possible  danger  there  could  be  of  fire,  one 
of  the  heavy  stones  placed  on  the  thatch  to  keep  it  from 
being  torn  up  by  high  winds  came  thundering  down  the 
chimney.  It  scattered  the  live  embers  on  the  hearth  all 
over  the  room.  A  richly-furnished  place,  with  knick- 
knacks  and  fine  muslin  about  it,  would  have  been  set  on 
fire  immediately.  Even  our  bare  floor  and  rough  furni- 
ture gave  out  a  smell  of  burning  at  the  first  shower  of 
embers  which  the  first  stone  scattered. 

For  an  instant  I  stood  quite  horroi'-struck  before  this 
new  proof  of  the  devilish  ingenuity  of  the  villains  out- 
side. But  the  dreadful  danger  I  was  now  in  recalled  me 
to  my  senses  immediately.  There  was  a  large  canful  of 
water  in  my  bedroom,  and  I  ran  in  at  once  to  fetch  it. 
Before  I  could  get  back  to  the  kitchen  a  second  stone 
had  been  thrown  down  the  chimney,  and  the  floor  was 
smouldering  in  several  places. 

I  had  wit  enough  to  let  the  smouldering  go  on  for  a 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  81 

moment  or  two  more,  and  to  pour  the  whole  of  my  can- 
ful  of  water  over  the  fire  before  the  third  stone  came 
down  the  chimney.  The  live  embers  on  the  floor  I  easily 
disposed  of  after  that.  The  man  on  the  roof  mnst  have 
heard  the  hissing  of  the  fire  as  I  put  it  out,  and  have  felt 
the  change  produced  in  the  air  at  the  mouth  of  the  chim- 
ney, for  after  the  third  stone  had  descended  no  more  fol- 
lowed it.  As  for  either  of  the  ruffians  themselves  drop- 
ping down  by  the  same  road  along  which  the  stones  had 
come,  that  was  not  to  be  dreaded.  The  chimney,  as  I 
well  knew  by  our  experience  in  cleaning  it,  was  too  nar- 
row to  give  passage  to  any  one  above  the  size  of  a  small 
boy. 

I  looked  upward  as  that  comforting  reflection  crossed 
my  mind — I  looked  up,  and  saw,  as  plainly  as  I  see  the 
paper  I  am  now  writing  on,  the  point  of  a  knife  coming 
through  the  inside  of  the  roof  just  over  my  head.  Our 
cottage  had  no  upper  story,  and  our  rooms  had  no  ceil- 
ings. Slowly  and  wickedly  the  knife  wriggled  its  way 
through  the  dry  inside  thatch  between  the  rafters.  It 
stopped  for  a  while,  and  there  came  a  sound  of  tearing. 
That,  in  its  turn,  stopped  too ;  there  was  a  great  fall  of 
dry  thatch  on  the  floor ;  and  I  saw  the  heavy,  hairy  hand 
of  Shifty  Dick,  armed  Avith  the  knife,  come  through  after 
the  fallen  fragments.  He  tapped  at  the  rafters  with  the 
back  of  the  knife,  as  if  to  test  their  strength.  Thank 
God,  they  were  substantial  and  close  together !  Nothing 
lighter  than  a  hatchet  would  have  sufficed  to  remove  any 
part  of  them. 

The  murderous  hand  was  still  tapping  with  the  knife 
when  I  heard  a  shout  from  the  man  Jerry,  coming  from 
the  neighborhood  of  my  father's  stone-shed  in  the  back 
yard.  The  hand  and  knife  disappeared  instantly.  I 
went  to  the  back  door  and  put  my  ear  to  it,  and  listened. 

Both  men  were  now  in  the  shed.     I  made  the  most 


82  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

desperate  efforts  to  call  to  mind  what  tools  and  other 
things  were  left  in  it  which  might  be  used  against  me. 
But  my  agitation  confused  me.  I  could  remember  noth- 
ing except  my  father's  big  stone-saw,  which  was  far  too 
heavy  and  unwieldy  to  be  used  on  the  roof  of  the  cot- 
tage. I  was  still  puzzling  my  brains,  and  making  my 
head  swim  to  no  purpose,  when  I  heard  the  men  drag- 
ging something  out  of  the  shed.  At  the  same  instant 
that  the  noise  caught  my  ear,  the  remembrance  flashed 
across  me  like  lightning  of  some  beams  of  wood  which 
had  lain  in  the  shed  for  years  past.  I  had  hardly  time 
to  feel  certain  that  they  were  removing  one  of  these 
beams  before  I  heard  Shifty  Dick  say  to  Jerry, 

"Which  door?" 

"  The  front,"  was  the  answer.  "  We've  cracked  it  al- 
ready ;  we'll  have  it  down  now  in  no  time."  . 

Senses  less  sharpened  by  danger  than  mine  would  have 
understood  but  too  easily,  from  these  words,  that  they 
were  about  to  use  the  beam  as  a  battering-ram  against 
the  door.  When  that  conviction  overcame  me,  I  lost 
courage  at  last.  I  felt  that  the  door  must  come  down. 
Xo  such  barricade  as  I  had  constructed  could  support  it 
for  more  than  a  few  minutes  against  such  shocks  as  it 
was  now  to  receive. 

"  I  can  do  no  more  to  keep  the  house  against  them," 
I  said  to  myself,  with  my  knees  knocking  together,  and 
the  tears  at  last  beginning  to  wet  my  cheeks.  "  I  must 
trust  to  the  night  and  the  thick  darkness,  and  save  my 
life  by  running  for  it  while  there  is  yet  time." 

I  huddled  on  my  cloak  and  hood,  and  had  my  hand  on 
the  bar  of  the  back  door,  when  a  piteous  mew  from  the 
bedroom  reminded  me  of  the  existence  of  poor  Pussy. 
I  ran  in,  and  huddled  the  creature  up  in  my  apron.  Be- 
fore I  was  out  in  the  passage  again,  the  first  shock  from 
the  beam  fell  on  the  door. 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  83 

The  upper  hinge  gave  way.  The  chairs  and  the  coal- 
scuttle, forming  the  top  of  my  barricade,  were  hurled, 
rattling,  on  to  the  floor,  but  the  lower  hinge  of  the  door, 
and  the  chest  of  drawers  and  the  tool-chest  still  kept  their 
places. 

"  One  more !"  I  heard  the  villains  cry — "  one  more  run 
with  the  beam,  and  down  it  comes !" 

Just  as  they  must  have  been  starting  for  that  "one 
more  run,"  I  opened  the  back  door  and  fled  out  into  the 
night,  with  the  book  full  of  bank-notes  in  my  bosom,  the 
silver  spoons  in  my  pocket,  and  the  cat  in  my  arms.  I 
threaded  my  way  easily  enough  through  the  familiar  ob- 
stacles in  the  back  yard,  and  was  out  in  the  pitch  dark- 
ness of  the  moor  before  I  heard  the  second  shock,  and  the 
crash  which  told  me  that  the  whole  door  had  given  way. 

In  a  few  minutes  they  must  have  discovered  the  fact 
of  my  flight  with  the  pocket-book,  for  I  heard  shouts  in 
the  distance  as  if  they  were  running  out  to  pursue  me. 
I  kept  on  at  the  top  of  my  speed,  and  the  noise  soon  died 
away.  It  was  so  dark  that  twenty  thieves  instead  of 
two  would  have  found  it  useless  to  follow  me. 

How  long  it  was  before  I  reached  the  farm-house — the 
nearest  place  to  which  I  could  fly  for  refuge — I  can  not 
tell  you.  I  remember  that  I  had  just  sense  enough  to 
keep  the  wind  at  my  back  (having  observed  in  the  be- 
ginning of  the  evening  that  it  blew  toward  Moor  Farm), 
and  to  go  on  resolutely  through  the  darkness.  In  all 
other  respects  I  was  by  this  time  half  crazed  by  what  I 
had  gone  through.  If  it  had  so  happened  that  the  wind 
had  changed  after  I  had  observed  its  direction  early  in 
the  evening,  I  should  have  gone  astray,  and  have  prob- 
ably perished  of  fatigue  and  exposure  on  the  moor. 
Providentially,  it  still  blew  steadily  as  it  had  blown  for 
hours  past,  and  I  reached  the  farm-house  with  my  clothes 
wet  through,  and  my  brain  in  a  high  fever.  When  I 


84  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

made  my  alarm  at  the  door,  they  had  all  gone  to  bed  but 
the  farmer's  eldest  son,  who  was  sitting  up  late  over  his 
pipe  and  newspaper.  I  just  mustered  strength  enough 
to  gasp  out  a  few  words,  telling  him  what  was  the  mat- 
ter, and  then  fell  down  at  his  feet,  for  the  first  time  in  my 
life  in  a  dead  swoon. 

That  swoon  wras  followed  by  a  severe  illness.  When 
I  got  strong  enough  to  look  about  me  again,  I  found  my- 
self in  one  of  the  farm-house  beds  —  my  father,  Mrs. 
Knifton,  and  the  doctor  were  all  in  the  room — my  cat 
was  asleep  at  my  feet,  and  the  pocket-book  that  I  had 
saved  lay  on  the  table  by  my  side. 

There  was  plenty  of  news  for  me  to  hear  as  soon  as  I 
was  fit  to  listen  to  it.  Shifty  Dick  and  the  other  rascal 
had  been  caught,  and  were  in  prison,  waiting  their  trial 
at  the  next  assizes.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Knifton  had  been  so 
shocked  at  the  danger  I  had  run — for  which  they  blamed 
their  own  want  of  thoughtfulness  in  leaving  the  pocket- 
book  in  my  care — that  they  had  insisted  on  my  father's 
removing  from  our  lonely  home  to  a  cottage  on  their 
land,  which  we  were  to  inhabit  rent  free.  The  bank- 
notes that  I  had  saved  were  given  to  me  to  buy  furniture 
with,  in  place  of  the  things  that  the  thieves  had  broken. 
These  pleasant  tidings  assisted  so  greatly  in  promoting 
my  recovery,  that  I  was  soon  able  to  relate  to  my  friends 
at  the  farm-house  the  particulars  that  I  have  written 
here.  They  were  all  surprised  and  interested,  but  no 
one,  as  I  thought,  listened  to  me  with  such  breathless  at- 
tention as  the  farmer's  eldest  son.  Mrs.  Knifton  noticed 
this  too,  and  began  to  make  jokes  about  it,  in  her  light- 
hearted  way,  as  soon  as  we  were  alone.  I  thought  little 
of  her  jesting  at  the  time ;  but  when  I  got  well,  and  we 
went  to  live  at  our  new  home,  "  the  young  farmer,"  as 
he  was  called  in  our  parts,  constantly  came  to  see  us, 
and  constantly  managed  to  meet  me  out  of  doors.  I  had 


THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS.  85 

my  share  of  vauity,  like  other  young  women,  and  I  began 
to  think  of  Mrs.  Knifton's  jokes  with  some  attention. 
To  be  brief,  the  young  farmer  managed  one  Sunday — I 
never  could  tell  how — to  lose  his  way  with  me  in  return- 
ing from  church,  and  before  we  found  out  the  right  road 
home  again  he  had  asked  me  to  be  his  wife. 

His  relations  did  all  they  could  to  keep  us  asunder  and 
break  off  the  match,  thinking  a  poor  stone-mason's  daugh- 
ter no  fit  wife  for  a  prosperous  yeoman.  But  the  farmer 
was  too  obstinate  for  them.  He  had  one  form  of  answer 
to  all  their  objections.  "  A  man,  if  he  is  worth  the  name, 
marries  according  to  his  own  notions,  and  to  please  him- 
self," he  used  to  say.  "  My  notion  is,  that  when  I  take 
a  wife  I  am  placing  my  character  and  my  happiness — the 
most  precious  things  I  have  to  trust — in  one  woman's 
care.  The  woman  I  mean  to  marry  had  a  small  charge 
confided  to  her  care,  and  showed  herself  worthy  of  it  at 
the  risk  of  her  life.  That  is  proof  enough  for  me  that 
she  is  worthy  of  the  greatest  charge  I  can  put  into  her 
hands.  Rank  and  riches  are  fine  things,  but  the  certain- 
ty of  getting  a  good  wife  is  something  better  still.  I'm 
of  age,  I  know  my  own  mind,  and  I  mean  to  marry  the 
stone-mason's  daughter." 

And  he  did  marry  me.  Whether  I  proved  myself 
worthy  or  not  of  his  good  opinion  is  a  question  which 
I  must  leave  you  to  ask  my  husband.  All  that  I  had  to 
relate  about  myself  and  my  doings  is  now  told.  What- 
ever interest  my  perilous  adventure  may  excite,  ends,  I 
am  well  aware,  with  my  escape  to  the  farm-house.  I 
have  only  ventured  on  writing  these  few  additional  sen- 
tences because  my  marriage  is  the  moral  of  my  story. 
It  has  brought  me  the  choicest  blessings  of  happiness  and 
prosperity,  and  I  owe  them  all  to  my  night-adventure  in 
The  Black  Cottage. 


THE  SECOND  DAY. 

A  CLEAR,  cloudless,  bracing  autumn  morning.  I  rose 
gayly,  with  the  pleasant  conviction  on  my  mind  that 
our  experiment  had  thus  far  been  successful  beyond  our 
hopes. 

Short  and  slight  as  the  first  story  had  been,  the  result 
of  it  on  Jessie's  mind  had  proved  conclusive.  Before  I 
could  put  the  question  to  her,  she  declared  of  her  own 
accord,  and  with  her  customary  exaggeration,  that  she 
had  definitely  abandoned  all  idea  of  writing  to  her  aunt 
until  our  collection  of  narratives  was  exhausted. 

"  I  am  in  a  fever  of  curiosity  about  what  is  to  come," 
she  said,  when  we  all  parted  for  the  night ;  "  and,  even 
if  I  wanted  to  leave  you,  I  could  not  possibly  go  away 
now,  without  hearing  the  stories  to  the  end." 

So  far,  so  good.  All  my  anxieties  from  this  time  were 
for  George's  return.  Again  to-day  I  searched  the  news- 
papers, and  again  there  were  no  tidings  of  the  ship. 

Miss  Jessie  occupied  the  second  day  by  a  drive  to  our 
county  town  to  make  some  little  purchases.  Owen,  and 
Morgan,  and  I  were  all  hard  at  work,  during  her  absence, 
on  the  stories  that  still  remained  to  be  completed.  Owen 
desponded  about  ever  getting  done ;  Morgan  grumbled 
at  what  he  called  the  absurd  difficulty  of  writing  non- 
sense. I  worked  on  smoothly  and  contentedly,  stimu- 
lated by  the  success  of  the  first  night. 

We  assembled,  as  before,  in  our  guest's  sitting-room. 
As  the  clock  struck  eight  she  drew  out  the  second  card. 
It  was  Number  Two.  The  lo^  had  fallen  on  me  to  read 
next. 


88  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

"Although  my  story  is  told  in  the  first  person,"  I  said, 
addressing  Jessie,  "  you  must  not  suppose  that  the  events 
related  in  this  particular  case  happened  to  me.  They 
happened  to  a  friend  of  mine,  who  naturally  described 
them  to  me  from  his  own  personal  point  of  view.  In 
producing  my  narrative  from  the  recollection  of  what  he 
told  me  some  years  since,  I  have  supposed  myself  to  be 
listening  to  him  again,  and  have  therefore  written  in  his 
character,  and,  whenever  my  memory  would  help  me,  as 
nearly  as  possible  in  his  language  also.  By  this  means  I 
hope  I  have  succeeded  in  giving  an  air  of  reality  to  a 
story  which  has  truth,  at  any  rate,  to  recommend  it.  I 
must  ask  you  to  excuse  me  if  I  enter  into  no  details  in 
offering  this  short  explanation.  Although  the  persons 
concerned  in  my  narrative  have  ceased  to  exist,  it  is  nec- 
essary to  observe  all  due  delicacy  toward  their  memories. 
Who  they  were,  and  how  I  became  acquainted  with  them, 
are  matters  of  no  moment.  The  interest  of  the  story, 
such  as  it  is,  stands  in  no  need,  in  this  instance,  of  any  as- 
sistance from  personal  explanations." 

With  those  words  I  addressed  myself  to  my  task,  and 
read  as  follows: 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  89 


BEOTHEK  GRIFFITH'S  STORY 

OF 

THE  FAMILY  SECRET. 

CHAPTER  I. 

WAS  it  an  Englishman  or  a  Frenchman  who  first  re- 
marked that  every  family  had  a  skeleton  in  its  cupboard  ? 
I  am  not  learned  enough  to  know,  but  I  reverence  the 
observation,  whoever  made  it.  It  speaks  a  startling  truth 
through  an  appropriately  grim  metaphor — a  truth  which 
I  have  discovered  by  practical  experience.  Our  family 
had  a  skeleton  in  the  cupboard,  and  the  name  of  it  was 
Uncle  George. 

I  arrived  at  the  knowledge  that  this  skeleton  existed, 
and  I  traced  it  to  the  particular  cupboard  in  which  it  was 
hidden,  by  slow  degrees.  I  was  a  child  when  I  first  be- 
gan to  suspect  that  there  was  such  a  thing,  and  a  grown 
man  when  I  at  last  discovered  that  my  suspicions  were 
true. 

My  father  was  a  doctor,  having  an  excellent  practice 
in  a  large  country  town.  I  have  heard  that  he  married 
against  the  wishes  of  his  family.  They  could  not  object 
to  my  mother  on  the  score  of  birth,  breeding,  or  charac- 
ter— they  only  disliked  her  heartily.  My  grandfather, 
grandmother,  uncles,  and  aunts  all  declared  that  she  was 
a  heartless,  deceitful  woman ;  all  disliked  her  manners, 
her  opinions,  and  even  the  expression  of  her  face — all, 
with  the  exception  of  my  father's  youngest  brother, 
George. 


90  THE    Ql'KKX    OF    HKAKTS. 

George  was  the  unlucky  member  of  our  family.  The 
rest  were  all  clever ;  he  was  slow  in  capacity.  The  rest 
were  all  remarkably  handsome ;  he  was  the  sort  of  man 
that  no  woman  ever  looks  at  twice.  The  rest  succeeded 
in  life;  he  failed.  His  profession  was  the  same  as  my  fa- 
ther's, but  he  never  got  on  when  he  started  in  practice 
for  himself.  The  sick  poor,  who  could  not  choose,  em- 
ployed him,  and  liked  him.  The  sick  rich,  who  could — 
especially  the  ladies — declined  to  call  him  in  when  they 
could  get  any  body  else.  In  experience  he  gained  great- 
ly by  his  profession  ;  in  money  and  reputation  he  gained 
nothing. 

There  are  very  few  of  us,  however  dull  and  unattract- 
ive we  may  be  to  outward  appearance,  who  have  not 
some  strong  passion,  some  germ  of  what  is  called  ro- 
mance, hidden  more  or  less  deeply  in  our  natures.  All 
the  passion  and  romance  in  the  nature  of  my  Uncle 
George  lay  in  his  love  and  admiration  of  my  father. 

He  sincerely  worshiped  his  eldest  brother  as  one  of 
the  noblest  of  human  beings.  When  my  father  was  en- 
gaged to  be  married,  and  when  the  rest  of  the  family,  as 
I  have  already  mentioned,  did  not  hesitate  to  express 
their  unfavorable  opinion  of  the  disposition  of  his  chosen 
wife,  Uncle  George,  who  had  never  ventured  on  differing 
with  any  one  before,  to  the  amazement  of  every  body, 
undertook  the  defense  of  his  future  sister-in-law  in  the 
most  vehement  and  positive  manner.  In  his  estimation, 
his  brother's  choice  was  something  sacred  and  indisput- 
able. The  lady  might,  and  did,  treat  him  with  uncon- 
cealed contempt,  laugh  at  his  awkwardness,  grow  impa- 
tient at  his  stammering — it  made  no  difference  to  Uncle 
George.  She  was  to  be  his  brother's  wife  ;  and,  in  vir- 
tue of  that  one  great  fact,  she  became,  in  the  estimation 
of  the  poor  surgeon,  a  very  queen,  who,  by  the  laws  of 
the  domestic  constitution,  could  do  no  wrong. 


THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS.  91 

When  my  father  had  been  married  a  little  while,  he 
took  his  youngest  brother  to  live  with  him  as  his  assist- 
ant. 

If  Uncle  George  had  been  made  President  of  the  Col- 
lege of  Surgeons,  he  could  not  have  been  prouder  and 
happier  than  lie  was  in  his  new  position.  I  am  afraid 
my  father  never  understood  the  depth  of  his  brother's 
affection  for  him.  All  the  hard  work  fell  to  George's 
share  :  the  long  journeys  at  night,  the  physicking  of  wea- 
risome poor  people,  the  drunken  cases,  the  revolting 
cases — all  the  drudging,  dirty  business  of  the  surgery, 
in  short,  was  turned  over  to  him ;  and  day  after  day, 
month  after  month,  he  struggled  through  it  without  a 
murmur.  When  his  brother  and  his  sister-in-law  went 
out  to  dine  with  the  county  gentry,  it  never  entered  his 
head  to  feel  disappointed  at  being  left  unnoticed  at  home. 
When  the  return  dinners  were  given,  and  he  was  asked 
to  come  in  at  tea-time,  and  left  to  sit  unregarded  in  a 
corner,  it  never  occurred  to  him  to  imagine  that  he  was 
treated  with  any  want  of  consideration  or  respect.  He 
was  part  of  the  furniture  of  the  house,  and  it  was  the 
business  as  well  as  the  pleasure  of  his  life  to  turn  him- 
self to  any  use  to  which  his  brother  might  please  to  put 
him. 

So  much  for  what  I  have  heard  from  others  on  the 
subject  of  my  Uncle  George.  My  own  personal  experi- 
ence of  him  is  limited  to  what  I  remember  as  a  mere 
child.  Let  me  say  something,  however,  first  about  my 
parents,  my  sister,  and  myself. 

My  sister  was  the  eldest  born  and  the  best  loved.  I 
did  not  come  into  the  world  till  four  years  after  her 
birth,  and  no  other  child  followed  me.  Caroline,  from 
her  earliest  days,  was  the  perfection  of  beauty  and  health. 
I  was  small,  weakly,  and,  if  the  truth  must  be  told,  al- 
most as  plain-featured  as  Uncle  George  himself.  It 


92  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

would  be  ungracious  and  undutiful  in  me  to  presume  to 
decide  whether  there  was  any  foundation  or  not  for  the 
dislike  that  my  father's  family  always  felt  for  my  mother. 
All  I  can  venture  to  say  is,  that  her  children  never  had 
any  cause  to  complain  of  her. 

Her  passionate  affection  for  my  sister,  her  pride  in  the 
child's  beauty,  I  remember  well,  as  also  her  uniform 
kindness  and  indulgence  toward  me.  My  personal  de- 
fects must  have  been  a  sore  trial  to  her  in  secret,  but 
neither  she  nor  my  father  ever  showed  me  that  they  per- 
ceived any  difference  between  Caroline  and  myself. 
When  presents  were  made  to  my  sister,  presents  were 
made  to  me.  When  my  father  and  mother  caught  my 
sister  up  in  their  arms  and  kissed  her,  they  scrupulously 
gave  me  my  turn  afterward.  My  childish  instinct  told 
me  that  there  was  a  difference  in  their  smiles  when  they 
looked  at  me  and  looked  at  her;  that  the  kisses  given  to 
Caroline  were  warmer  than  the  kisses  given  to  me ;  that 
the  hands  which  dried  her  tears  in  our  childish  griefs 
touched  her  more  gently  than  the  hands  which  dried 
mine.  But  these,  and  other  small  signs  of  preference 
like  them,  were  such  as  no  parents  could  be  expected  to 
control.  I  noticed  them  at  the  time  rather  with  wonder 
than  with  repining.  I  recall  them  now  without  a  harsh 
thought  either  toward  my  father  or  my  mother.  Both 
loved  me,  and  both  did  their  duty  by  me.  If  I  seem  to 
speak  constrainedly  of  them  here,  it  is  not  on  my  own 
account.  I  can  honestly  say  that,  with  all  my  heart  and 
soul. 

Even  Uncle  George,  fond  as  he  was  of  me,  was  fonder 
of  my  beautiful  child-sister. 

When  I  used  mischievously  to  pull  at  his  lank,  scanty 
hair,  he  would  gently  and  laughingly  take  it  out  of  my 
hands,  but  he  would  let  Caroline  tug  at  it  till  his  dim, 
wandering  gray  eyes  winked  and  watered  again  with 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  93 

pain.  He  used  to  plunge  perilously  about  the  garden, 
in  awkward  imitation  of  the  cantering  of  a  horse,  while  I 
sat  on  his  shoulders,  but  he  would  never  proceed  at  any 
pace  beyond  a  slow  and  safe  walk  when  Caroline  had  a 
ride  in  her  turn.  When  he  took  us  out  walking,  Caro- 
line was  always  on  the  side  next  the  wall.  When  we 
interrupted  him  over  his  dirty  work  in  the  surgery,  he 
used  to  tell  me  to  go  and  play  until  he  was  ready  for 
me ;  but  he  would  put  down  his  bottles,  and  clean  his 
clumsy  fingers  on  his  coarse  apron,  and  lead  Caroline  out 
again,  as  if  she  had  been  the  greatest  lady  in  the  land. 
All !  how  he  loved  her !  and,  let  me  be  honest  and  grate- 
ful, and  add,  how  he  loved  me  too ! 

When  I  was  eight  years  old  and  Caroline  was  twelve, 
I  was  separated  from  home  for  some  time.  I  had  been 
ailing  for  many  months  previously  ;  had  got  benefit  from 
being  taken  to  the  sea-side,  and  had  shown  symptoms  of 
relapsing  on  being  brought  home  again  to  the  midland 
county  in  which  we  resided.  After  much  consultation, 
it  was  at  last  resolved  that  I  should  be  sent  to  live,  until 
my  constitution  got  stronger,  with  a  maiden  sister  of  my 
mother's,  who  had  a  house  at  a  watering-place  on  the 
south  coast. 

I  left  home,  I  remember,  loaded  with  presents,  rejoicing 
over  the  prospect  of  looking  at  the  sea  again,  as  careless 
of  the  future  and  as  happy  in  the  present  as  any  boy 
could  be.  Uncle  George  petitioned  for  a  holiday  to  take 
me  to  the  sea-side,  but  he  could  not  be  spared  from  the 
surgery.  He  consoled  himself  and  me  by  promising  to 
make  me  a  magnificent  model  of  a  ship. 

I  have  that  model  before  my  eyes  now  while  I  write. 
It  is  dusty  with  age ;  the  paint  on  it  is  cracked ;  the  ropes 
are  tangled ;  the  sails  are  moth-eaten  and  yellow.  The 
hull  is  all  out  of  proportion,  and  the  rig  has  been  smiled 
at  by  every  nautical  friend  of  mine  who  has  ever  looked 


94  THE   QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

at  it.  Yet,  worn-out  and  faulty  as  it  is — inferior  to  the 
cheapest  miniature  vessel  nowadays  in  any  toy-shop  win- 
dow— I  hardly  know  a  possession  of  mine  in  this  world 
that  I  would  not  sooner  part  with  than  Uncle  George's 
ship. 

My  life  at  the  sea-side  was  a  very  happy  one.  I  re- 
mained with  my  aunt  more  than  a  year.  My  mother  oft- 
en came  to  see  how  I  was  going  on,  and  at  first  always 
brought  my  sister  with  her;  but  during  the  last  eight 
months  of  my  stay  Caroline  never  once  appeared.  I  no- 
ticed also,  at  the  same  period,  a  change  in  my  mother's 
manner.  She  looked  paler  and  more  anxious  at  each  suc- 
ceeding visit,  and  always  had  long  conferences  in  private 
with  my  aunt.  At  last  she  ceased  to  come  and  see  us 
altogether,  and  only  wrote  to  know  how  my  health  was 
getting  on.  My  father,  too,  who  had  at  the  earlier  pe- 
riods of  my  absence  from  home  traveled  to  the  sea-side 
to  watch  the  progress  of  my  recovery  as  often  as  his  pro- 
fessional engagements  would  permit,  now  kept  away  like 
my  mother.  Even  Uncle  George,  who  had  never  been 
allowed  a  holiday  to  come  and  see  me,  but  who  had  hith- 
erto often  written  and  begged  me  to  write  to  him,  broke 
off  our  correspondence. 

I  was  naturally  perplexed  and  amazed  by  these  changes, 
and  persecuted  my  aunt  to  tell  me  the  reason  of  them. 
At  first  she  tried  to  put  me  off  with  excuses ;  then  she 
admitted  that  there  was  trouble  in  our  house ;  and  final- 
ly she  confessed  that  the  trouble  was  caused  by  the  ill- 
ness of  my  sister.  When  I  inquired  what  that  illness 
was,  my  aunt  said  it  was  useless  to  attempt  to  explain  it 
to  me.  I  next  applied  to  the  servants.  One  of  them 
was  less  cautious  than  my  aunt,  and  answered  my  ques- 
tion, but  in  terms  that  I  could  not  comprehend.  After 
much  explanation,  I  was  made  to  understand  that  "  some 
thing  was  growing  on  my  sister's  neck  that  Avould  spoil 


THE   QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  95 

her  beauty  forever,  and  perhaps  kill  her,  if  it  could  not  be 
got  rid  of."  How  well  I  remember  the  shudder  of  hor- 
ror that  ran  through  me  at  the  vague  idea  of  this  deadly 
"  something !"  A  fearful,  awe-struck  curiosity  to  see 
what  Caroline's  illness  was  with  my  own  eyes  troubled 
my  inmost  heart,  and  I  begged  to  be  allowed  to  go  home 
and  help  to  nurse  her.  The  request  was,  it  is  almost 
needless  to  say,  refused. 

"Weeks  passed  away,  and  still  I  heard  nothing,  except 
that  my  sister  continued  to  be  ill. 

One  day  I  privately  wrote  a  letter  to  Uncle  George, 
asking  him,  in  my  childish  way,  to  come  and  tell  me 
about  Caroline's  illness. 

I  knew  where  the  post-office  was,  and  slipped  out  in 
the  morning  unobserved  and  dropped  my  letter  in  the 
box.  I  stole  home  again  by  the  garden,  and  climbed  in 
at  the  window  of  a  back  parlor  on  the  ground  floor. 
The  room  above  was  my  aimt's  bedchamber,  and  the 
moment  I  was  inside  the  house  I  heard  moans  and  loud 
convulsive  sobs  proceeding  from  it.  My  aunt  wras  a  sin- 
gularly quiet,  composed  woman.  I  could  not  imagine 
that  the  loud  sobbing  and  moaning  came  from  her,  and  I 
ran  down  terrified  into  the  kitchen  to  ask  the  servants 
who  was  crying  so  violently  in  my  aunt's  room.. 

I  found  the  housemaid  and  the  cook  talking  together 
in  whispers  with  serious  faces.  They  started  when  they 
saw  me  as  if  I  had  been  a  grown-up  master  who  had 
caught  them  neglecting  their  work. 

"  He's  too  young  to  feel  it  much,"  I  heard  one  say  to 
the  other.  "'So  far  as  he  is  concerned,  it  seems  like  a 
mercy  that  it  happened  no  later." 

In  a  few  minutes  they  had  told  me  the  worst.  It  was 
indeed  my  aunt  who  had  been  crying  in  the  bedroom. 
Caroline  was  dead. 

I  felt  the  blow  more  severely  than  the  servants  or  any 

K 


96  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

one  else  about  me  supposed.  Still  I  was  a  child  in  years, 
and  I  had  the  blessed  elasticity  of  a  child's  nature.  If  I 
had  been  older,  I  might  have  been  too  much  absorbed  in 
grief  to  observe  my  aunt  so  closely  as  I  did  when  she 
was  composed  enough  to  see  me  later  in  the  day. 

I  was  not  surprised  by  the  swollen  state  of  her  eyes, 
the  paleness  of  her  cheeks,  or  the  fresh  burst  of  tears 
that  came  from  her  when  she  took  me  in  her  arms  at 
meeting.  But  I  was  both  amazed  and  perplexed  by  the 
look  of  terror  that  I  detected  in  her  face.  It  was  natu- 
ral enough  that  she  should  grieve  and  wreep  over  my 
sister's  death,  but  why  should  she  have  that  frightened 
look  as  if  some  other  catastrophe  had  happened  ? 

I  asked  if  there  was  any  more  dreadful  news  from 
home  besides  the  news  of  Caroline's  death.  My  aunt 
said  No  in  a  strange,  stifled  voice,  and  suddenly  turned 
her  face  from  me.  Was  my  father  dead?  No.  My 
mother?  No.  Uncle  George?  My  aunt  trembled  all 
over  as  she  said  No  to  that  also,  and  bade  me  cease  ask- 
ing any  more  questions.  She  was  not  fit  to  bear  them 
yet  she  said,  and  signed  to  the  servant  to  lead  me  out  of 
the  room. 

The  next  day  I  was  told  that  I  was  to  go  home  after 
the  funeral,  and  was  taken  out  toward  evening  by  the 
housemaid,  partly  for  a  walk,  partly  to  be  measured  for 
my  mourning  clothes.  After  we  had  left  the  tailor's,  I 
persuaded  the  girl  to  extend  our  walk  for  some  distance 
along  the  sea-beach,  telling  her,  as  we  went,  every  little 
anecdote  connected  with  my  lost  sister  that  came  tender- 
ly back  to  my  memory  in  those  first  days  of  sorrow. 
She  was  so  interested  in  hearing  and  I  in  speaking,  that 
we  let  the  sun  go  down  before  we  thought  of  turning 
back. 

The  evening  was  cloudy,  and  it  got  on  from  dusk  to 
dark  by  the  time  we  approached  the  town  again.  The 


THE    QUEEN    OP    HEAKTS.  97 

housemaid  was  rather  nervous  at  finding  herself  alone 
with  rne  on  the  beach,  and  once  or  twice  looked  behind 
her  distrustfully  as  we  went  on.  Suddenly  she  squeezed 
my  hand  hard  and  said, 

"  Let's  get  up  on  the  clift'  as  fast  as  we  can." 

The  words  were  hardly  out  of  her  mouth  before  I 
heard  footsteps  behind  me — a  man  came  round  quickly 
to  my  side,  snatched  me  away  from  the  girl,  and,  catch- 
ing me  up  in  his  arms,  without  a  word,  covered  my  face 
with  kisses.  I  knew  he  was  crying,  because  my  cheeks 
were  instantly  wet  with  his  tears;  but  it  wa$  too  dark 
for  me  to  see  who  he  was,  or  even  how  he  was  dressed. 
He  did  not,  I  should  think,  hold  me  half  a  minute  in  his 
arms.  The  housemaid  screamed  for  help.  I  was  put 
down  gently  on  the  sand,  and  the  strange  man  instantly 
disappeared  in  the  darkness. 

When  this  extraordinary  adventure  was  related  to  my 
aunt,  she  seemed  at  first  merely  bewildered  at  hearing 
of  it ;  but  in  a  moment  more  there  came  a  change  over 
her  face,  as  if  she  had  suddenly  recollected  or  thought  of 
something.  She  turned  deadly  pale,  and  said  in  a  hur- 
ried way,  very  unusual  with  her, 

"  Never  mind  ;  don't  talk  about  it  any  more.  It  was 
only  a  mischievous  trick  to  frighten  you,  I  dare  say. 
Forget  all  about  it,  my  dear — forget  all  about  it." 

It  was  easier  to  give  this  advice  than  to  make  me  fol- 
low it.  For  many  nights  after  I  thought  of  nothing  but 
the  strange  man  who  had  kissed  me  and  cried  over  me. 

Who  could  he  be?  Somebody  who  loved  me  very 
much,  and  wrho  was  very  sorry.  My  childish  logic  car- 
ried me  to  that  length.  But  when  I  tried  to  think  over 
all  the  grown-up  gentlemen  who  loved  me  very  much,  I 
could  never  get  on,  to  my  own  satisfaction,  beyond  my 
father  and  my  uncle  George. 


98  THE    QUEEN    OP    HEARTS. 


CHAPTER  II. 

I  WAS  taken  home  on  the  appointed  day  to  suffer  the 
trial — a  hard  one  even  at  ray  tender  years — of  witness- 
ing my  mother's  passionate  grief  and  my  father's  mute 
despair.  I  remember  that  the  scene  of  our  first  meeting 
after  Caroline's  death  was  wisely  and  considerately  short- 
ened by  my  aunt,  who  took  me  out  of  the  room.  She 
seemed  to  have  a  confused  desire  to  keep  me  from  leav- 
ing her  after  the  door  had  closed  behind  us ;  but  I  broke 
away  and  ran  down  stairs  to  the  surgery,  to  go  and  cry 
for  my  lost  playmate  with  the  sharer  of  all  our  games, 
Uncle  George. 

I  opened  the  surgery  door,  and  could  see  nobody.  I 
dried  my  tears,  and  looked  all  round  the  room — it  was 
empty.  I  ran  up  stairs  again  to  Uncle  George's  garret 
bedroom — he  was  not  there;  his  cheap  hairbrush  and 
old  cast-off  razor-case  that  had  belonged  to  my  grand- 
father were  not  on  the  dressing-table.  Had  he  got  some 
other  bedroom  ?  I  went  out  on  the  landing,  and  called 
softly,  with  an  unaccountable  terror  and  sinking  at  my 
heart — 

"Uncle  George!" 

Nobody  answered ;  but  my  aunt  came  hastily  up  the 
garret  stairs. 

"  Hush !"  she  said.  "  You  must  never  call  that  name 
out  here  again !" 

She  stopped  suddenly,  and  looked  as  if  her  own  words 
had  frightened  her. 

"  Is  Uncle  George  dead  ?"  I  asked. 

My  aunt  turned  red  and  pale,  and  stammered. 

I  did  not  wait  to  hear  what  she  said.     I  brushed  past 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  99 

her,  down  the  stairs.  My  heart  was  bursting — my  flesh 
felt  cold.  I  ran  breathlessly  and  recklessly  into  the  room 
where  my  father  and  mother  had  received  me.  They 
were  both  sitting  there  still.  I  ran  up  to  them,  wring- 
ing my  hands,  and  crying  out  in  a  passion  of  tears, 

"  Is  Uncle  George  dead  ?" 

My  mother  gave  a  scream  that  terrified  me  into  instant 
silence  and  stillness.  My  father  looked  at  her  for  a  mo- 
ment, rang  the  bell  that  summoned  the  maid,  then  seized 
me  roughly  by  the  arm  and  dragged  me  out  of  the  room. 

He  took  me  down  into  the  study,  seated  himself  in  his 
accustomed  chair,  and  put  me  before  him  between  his 
knees.  His  lips  were  awfully  white,  and  I  felt  his  two 
hands,  as  they  grasped  my  shoulders,  shaking  violently. 

"  You  are  never  to  mention  the  name  of  Uncle  George 
again,"  he  said,  in  a  quick,  angry,  trembling  whisper. 
"  Never  to  me,  never  to  your  mother,  never  to  your 
aunt,  never  to  any  body  in  this  world !  Never — never 
— never !" 

The  repetition  of  the  word  terrified  me  even  more 
than  the  suppressed  vehemence  with  which  he  spoke. 
He  saw  that  I  was  frightened,  and  softened  his  manner  a 
little  before  he  went  on. 

"You  Avill  never  see  Uncle  George  again,"  he  said. 
"  Your  mother  and  I  love  you  dearly ;  but  if  you  forget 
what  I  have  told  you,  you  will  be  sent  away  from  home. 
Never  speak  that  name  again — mind,  never !  Now  kiss 
me,  and  go  away." 

How  his  lips  trembled — and  oh,  how  cold  they  felt  on 
mine ! 

I  shrunk  out  of  the  room  the  moment  he  had  kissed 
me,  and  went  and  hid  myself  in  the  garden. 

"  Uncle  George  is  gone.  I  am  never  to  see  him  any 
more ;  I  am  never  to  speak  of  him  again" — those  were 
the  words  I  repeated  to  myself,  with  indescribable 


100  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

and  confusion,  the  moment  I  was  alone.  There  was 
something  unspeakably  horrible  to  my  young  mind  in 
this  mystery  which  I  was  commanded  always  to  respect, 
and  which,  so  far  as  I  then  knew,  I  could  never  hope  to 
see  revealed.  My  father,  my  mother,  my  aunt,  all  ap- 
peared to  be  separated  from  me  now  by  some  impassa- 
ble barrier.  Home  seemed  home  no  longer  with  Caro- 
line dead,  Uncle  George  gone,  and  a  forbidden  subject 
of  talk  perpetually  and  mysteriously  interposing  between 
my  parents  and  me. 

Though  I  never  infringed  the  command  my  father  had 
given  me  in  his  study  (his  words  and  looks,  and  that 
dreadful  scream  of  my  mother's,  which  seemed  to  be  still 
ringing  in  my  ears,  were  more  than  enough  to  insure  my 
obedience),  I  also  never  lost  the  secret  desire  to  pene- 
trate the  darkness  which  clouded  over  the  fate  of  Uncle 
George. 

For  two  years  I  remained  at  home  and  discovered 
nothing.  If  I  asked  the  servants  about  my  uncle,  they 
could  only  tell  me  that  one  morning  he  disappeared  from 
the  house.  Of  the  members  of  my  father's  family  I  could 
make  no  inquiries.  They  lived  far  away,  and  never  came 
to  see  us ;  and  the  idea  of  writing  to  them,  at  my  age 
and  in  my  position,  was  out  of  the  question.  My  aunt 
was  as  unapproachably  silent  as  my  father  and  mother ; 
but  I  never  forgot  how  her  face  had  altered  when  she 
reflected  for  a  moment  after  hearing  of  my  extraordina- 
ry adventure  while  going  home  with  the  servant  over 
the  sands  at  night.  The  more  I  thought  of  that  change 
of  countenance  in  connection  with  what  had  occurred  on 
my  return  to  my  father's  house,  the  more  certain  I  felt 
that  the  stranger  who  had  kissed  me  and  wept  over  me 
must  have  been  no  other  than  Uncle  George. 

o 

At  the  end  of  my  two  years  at  home  I  was  sent  to  sea 
in  the  merchant  navy  by  my  own  earnest  desire.  I  had. 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  101 

always  determined  to  be  a  sailor  from  the  time  when  I 
first  went  to  stay  with  my  aunt  at  the  sea-side,  and  I  per- 
sisted long  enough  in  my  resolution  to  make  my  parents 
recognize  the  necessity  of  acceding  to  my  wishes. 

My  new  life  delighted  me,  and  I  remained  away  on 
foreign  stations  more  than  four  years.  When  I  at  length 
returned  home,  it  was  to  find  a  new  affliction  darkening 
our  fireside.  My  father  had  died  on  the  very  day  when 
I  sailed  for  my  return  voyage  to  England. 

Absence  and  change  of  scene  had  in  no  respect  weak- 
ened my  desire  to  penetrate  the  mystery  of  Uncle 
George's  disappearance.  My  mother's  health  was  so 
delicate  that  I  hesitated  for  some  time  to  approach  the 
forbidden  subject  in  her  presence.  When  I  at  last  ven- 
tured to  refer  to  it,  suggesting  to  her  that  any  prudent 
reserve  which  might  have  been  necessary  while  I  was  a 
child,  need  no  longer  be  persisted  in  now  that  I  was 
growing  to  be  a  young  man,  she  fell  into  a  violent  fit  of 
trembling,  and  commanded  me  to  say  no  more.  It  had 
been  my  father's  will,  she  said,  that  the  reserve  to  which 
I  referred  should  be  always  adopted  toward  me ;  he  had 
not  authorized  her,  before  he  died,  to  speak  more  openly ; 
and,  now  that  he  was  gone,  she  would  not  so  much  as 
think  of  acting  on  her  own  unaided  judgment.  My  aunt 
said  the  same  thing  in  effect  when  I  appealed  to  her. 
Determined  not  to  be  discouraged  even  yet,  I  undertook 
a  journey,  ostensibly  to  pay  my  respects  to  my  father's 
family,  but  with  the  secret  intention  of  trying  what  I 
could  learn  in  that  quarter  on  the  subject  of  Uncle 
George. 

My  investigations  led  to  some  results,  though  they 
were  by  no  means  satisfactory.  George  had  always 
been  looked  upon  with  something  like  contempt  by  his 
handsome  sisters  and  his  prosperous  brothers,  and  he 
had  not  improved  his  position  in  the  family  by  his  warm 


102  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

advocacy  of  his  brother's  cause  at  the  time  of  my  father's 
marriage.  I  found  that  my  uncle's  surviving  relatives 
now  spoke  of  him  slightingly  and  carelessly.  They  as- 
sured me  that  they  had  never  heard  from  him,  and  that 
they  knew  nothing  about  him,  except  that  he  had  gone 
away  to  settle,  as  they  supposed,  in  some  foreign  place, 
after  having  behaved  very  basely  and  badly  to  my  fa- 
ther. He  had  been  traced  to  London,  where  he  had  sold 
out  of  the  funds  the  small  share  of  money  which  he  had 
inherited  after  his  father's  death,  and  he  had  been  seen 
on  the  deck  of  a  packet  bound  for  France  later  on 
the  same  day.  Beyond  this  nothing  was  known  about 
him.  In  what  the  alleged  baseness  of  his  behavior  had 
consisted  none  of  his  brothers  and  sisters  could  tell  me. 
My  father  had  refused  to  pain  them  by  going  into  par- 
ticulars, not  only  at  the  time  of  his  brother's  disappear- 
ance, but  afterward,  whenever  the  subject  was  mention- 
ed. George  had  always  been  the  black  sheep  of  the 
flock,  and  he  must  have  been  conscious  of  his  own  "base- 
ness, or  he  would  certainly  have  written  to  explain  and 
to  justify  himself. 

Such  were  the  particulars  which  I  gleaned  during  my 
visit  to  my  father's  family.  To  my  mind,  they  tended 
rather  to  deepen  than  to  reveal  the  mystery.  That  such 
a  gentle,  docile,  affectionate  creature  as  Uncle  George 
should  have  injured  the  brother  he  loved  by  word  or 
deed,  at  any  period  of  their  intercourse,  seemed  incred- 
ible ;  but  that  he  should  have  been  guilty  of  an  act  of 
baseness  at  the  very  time  when  my  sister  was  dying 
was  simply  and  plainly  impossible.  And  yet  there  was 
the  incomprehensible  fact  staring  me  in  the  face  that  the 
death  of  Caroline  and  the  disappearance  of  Uncle  George 
had  taken  place  in  the  same  week!  Never  did  I  feel 
more  daunted  and  bewildered  by  the  family  secret  than 
after  I  had  heard  all  the  particulars  in  connection  with 
it  that  my  father's  relatives  had  to  tell  me. 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  103 

I  may  pass  over  the  events  of  the  next  few  years  of 
my  life  briefly  enough. 

My  nautical  pursuits  filled  up  all  my  time,  and  took 
me  far  away  from  my  country  and  my  friends.  But, 
whatever  I  did,  and  wherever  I  went,  the  memory  of 
Uncle  George,  and  the  desire  to  penetrate  the  mystery 
of  his  disappearance,  haunted  me  like  familiar  spirits. 
Often,  in  the  lonely  watches  of  the  night  at  sea,  did  I  re- 
call the  dark  evening  on  the  beach,  the  strange  man's 
hurried  embrace,  the  startling  sensation  of  feeling  his 
tears  on  my  cheeks,  the  disappearance  of  him  before  I 
had  breath  or  self-possession  enough  to  say  a  word. 
Often  did  I  think  over  the  inexplicable  events  that  fol- 
lowed, when  I  had  returned,  after  my  sister's  funeral,  to 
my  father's  house ;  and  oftener  still  did  I  puzzle  my 
brains  vainly  in  the  attempt  to  form  some  plan  for  induc- 
ing my  mother  or  my  aunt  to  disclose  the  secret  which 
they  had  hitherto  kept  from  me  so  perseveringly.  My 
only  chance  of  knowing  what  had  really  happened  to 
Uncle  George,  my  only  hope  of  seeing  him  again,  rested 
with  those  two  near  and  dear  relatives.  I  despaired  of 
ever  getting  my  mother  to  speak  on  the  forbidden  sub- 
ject after  what  had  passed 'bet  ween  us,  but  I  felt  more 
sanguine  about  my  prospects  of  ultimately  inducing  my 
aunt  to  relax  in  her  discretion.  My  anticipations,  how- 
ever, in  this  direction  were  not  destined  to  be  fulfilled. 
On  my  next  visit  to  England  I  found  my  aunt  prostrated 
by  a  paralytic  attack,  which  deprived  her  of  the  power 
of  speech.  She  died  soon  afterward  in  my  arms,  leaving 
me  her  sole  heir.  I  searched  anxiously  among  her  papers 
for  some  reference  to  the  family  mystery,  but  found  no 
clew  to  guide  me.  All  my  mother's  letters  to  her  sister 
at  the  time  of  Caroline's  illness  and  death  had  been  de- 
stroyed. 

5* 


104  THE    Qt  EEX    OF    HEARTS. 


CHAPTER  III. 

MORE  years  passed ;  my  mother  followed  my  aunt  to 
the  grave,  and  still  I  was  as  far  as  ever  from  making  any 
discoveries  in  relation  to  Uncle  George.  Shortly  after 
the  period  of  this  last  affliction  my  health  gave  way,  and 
I  departed,  by  my  doctor's  advice,  to  try  some  baths  in 
the  south  of  France. 

I  traveled  slowly  to  my  destination,  turning  aside  from 
the  direct  road,  and  stopping  wherever  I  pleased.  One 
evening,  when  I  was  not  more  than  two  or  three  days' 
journey  from  the  baths  to  which  I  was  bound,  I  was 
struck  by  the  picturesque  situation  of  a  little  town  placed 
on  the  brow  of  a  hill  at  some  distance  from  the  main 
road,  and  resolved  to  have  a  nearer  look  at  the  place, 
with  a  view  to  stopping  there  for  the  night,  if  it  pleased 
me.  I  found  the  principal  inn  clean  and  quiet — ordered 
my  bed  there — and,  after  dinner,  strolled  out  to  look  at 
the  church.  No  thought  of  Uncle  George  was  in  my 
mind  when  I  entered  the  building ;  and  yet,  at  that  very 
moment,  chance  was  leading  me  to  the  discovery  which, 
for  so  many  years  past,  I  had  vainly  endeavored  to  make 
— the  discovery  which  I  had  given  up  as  hopeless  since 
the  day  of  my  mother's  death. 

I  found  nothing  worth  notice  in  the  church,  and  was 
about  to  leave  it  again,  when  I  caught  a  glimpse  of  a 
pretty  view  through  a  side  door,  and  stopped  to  ad- 
mire it. 

The  church-yard  formed  the  foreground,  and  below  it 
the  hill-side  sloped  away  gently  into  the  plain,  over 
which  the  sun  was  setting  in  full  glory.  The  cure  of  the 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  105 

church  was  reading  his  breviary,  walking  up  and  down 
a  gravel-path  that  parted  the  rows  of  graves.  In  the 
course  of  my  wanderings  I  had  learned  to  speak  French 
as  fluently  as  most  Englishmen,  and  when  the  priest 
came  near  me  I  said  a  few  words  in  praise  of  the  view, 
and  complimented  him  on  the  neatness  and  prettiness  of 
the  church-yard.  He  answered  with  great  politeness, 
and  we  got  into  conversation  together  immediately. 

As  we  strolled  along  the  gravel-walk,  my  attention 
was  attracted  by  one  of  the  graves  standing  apart  from 
the  rest.  The  cross  at  the  head  of  it  differed  remarka- 
bly, in  some  points  of  appearance,  from  the  crosses  on 
the  other  graves.  While  all  the  rest  had  garlands  hung 
on  them,  this  one  cross  was  quite  bare ;  and,  more  extra- 
ordinary still,  no  name  was  inscribed  on  it. 

The  priest,  observing  that  I  stopped  to  look  at  the 
grave,  shook  his  head  and  sighed. 

"A  countryman  of  yours  is  buried  there,"  he  said. 
"I  was  present  at  his  death.  He  had  borne  the  burden 
of  a  great  sorrow  among  us,  in  this  town,  for  many  wea- 
ry years,  and  his  conduct  had  taught  us  to  respect  and 
pity  him  with  all  our  hearts." 

"  How  is  it  that  his  name  is  not  inscribed  over  his 
grave  ?"  I  inquired. 

"  It  wTas  suppressed  by  his  OAvn  desire,"  answered  the 
priest,  with  some  little  hesitation.  "  He  confessed  to  me 
in  his  last  moments  that  he  had  lived  here  under  an  as- 
sumed name.  I  asked  his  real  name,  and  he  told  it  to 
me,  with  the  particulars  of  his  sad  story.  He  had  rea- 
sons for  desiring  to  be  forgotten  after  his  death.  Al- 
most the  last  words  he  spoke  were,  'Let  my  name  die 
with  me.'  Almost  the  last  request  he  made  was  that  I 
would  keep  that  name  a  secret  from  all  the  world  except- 
ing only  one  person." 

"  Some  relative,  I  suppose  ?"  said  I. 


106  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

"  Yes — a  nephew,"  said  the  priest. 

The  moment  the  last  word  was  out  of  his  mouth,  my 
heart  gave  a  strange  answering  bound.  I  suppose  I  must 
have  changed  color  also,  for  the  cure  looked  at  me  with 
sudden  attention  and  interest. 

"  A  nephew,"  the  priest  went  on,  "  Avhom  he  had  loved 
like  his  own  child.  He  told  me  that  if  this  nephew  ever 
traced  him  to  his  burial-place,  and  asked  about  him,  I 
was  free  in  that  case  to  disclose  all  I  knew.  '  I  should 
like  my  little  Charley  to  know  the  truth,'  he  said.  '  In 
spite  of  the  difference  in  our  ages,  Charley  and  I  were 
playmates  years  ago.' " 

My  heart  beat  faster,  and  I  felt  a  choking  sensation  at 
the  throat  the  moment  I  heard  the  priest  unconsciously 
mention  my  Christian  name  in  reporting  the  dying  man's 
last  words. 

As  soon  as  I  could  steady  my  voice  and  feel  certain 
of  my  self-possession,  I  communicated  my  family  name 
to  the  cure,  and  asked  him  if  that  was  not  part  of  the 
secret  that  he  had  been  requested  to  preserve. 

He  started  back  several  steps,  and  clasped  his  hands 
amazedly. 

"  Can  it  be  !"  he  said,  in  low  tones,  gazing  at  me  earn- 
estly, with'  something  like  dread  in  his  face. 

I  gave  him  my  passport,  and  looked  away  toward  the 
grave.  The  tears  came  into  my  eyes  as  the  recollections 
of  past  days  crowded  back  on  me.  Hardly  knowing 
what  I  did,  I  knelt  down  by  the  grave,  and  smoothed 
the  grass  over  it  with  my  hand.  Oh,  Uncle  George,  why 
not  have  told  your  secret  to  your  old  playmate  ?  Why 
leave  him  to  find  you  here  ? 

The  priest  raised  me  gently,  and  begged  me  to  go  with 
him  into  his  own  house.  On  our  way  there,  I  mentioned 
persons  and  places  that  I  thought  my  uncle  might  have 
spoken  of,  in  order  to  satisfy  my  companion  that  I  was 


THE    QTEEX    OF    HEARTS.  107 

really  the  person  I  represented  myself  to  be.  By  the 
time  we  had  entered  his  little  parlor,  and  had  sat  down 
alone  in  it,  we  were  almost  like  old  friends  together. 

I  thought  it  best  that  I  should  begin  by  telling  all  that 
I  have  related  here  on  the  subject  of  Uncle  George,  and 
his  disappearance  from  home.  My  host  listened  with  a 
very  sad  face,  and  said,  when  I  had  done, 

"  I  can  understand  your  anxiety  to  know  what  I  am 
authorized  to  tell  you,  but  pardon  me  if  I  say  first  that 
there  are  circumstances  in  your  uncle's  story  which  it 
may  pain  you  to  hear —  He  stopped  suddenly. 

"  Which  it  may  pain  me  to  hear  as  a  nephew  ?"  I 
asked. 

"  No,"  said  the  priest,  looking  away  from  me,  "  as  a 
son." 

I  gratefully  expressed  my  sense  of  the  delicacy  and 
kindness  which  had  prompted  my  companion's  warning, 
but  I  begged  him,  at  the  same  time,  to  keep  me  no  longer 
in  suspense,  and  to  tell  me  the  stern  truth,  no  matter  how 
painfully  it  might  aifect  me  as  a  listener. 

"  In  telling  me  all  you  knew  about  what  you  term  the 
Family  Secret,"  said  the  priest,  "  you  have  mentioned  as 
a  strange  coincidence  that  your  sister's  death  and  your 
uncle's  disappearance  took  place  at  the  same  time.  Did 
you  ever  suspect  what  cause  it  was  that  occasioned  your 
sister's  death  ?" 

"  I  only  knew  what  my  father  told  me,  and  what  all 
our  friends  believed — that  she  died  of  a  tumor  in  the 
neck,  or,  as  I  sometimes  heard  it  stated,  from  the  effect 
on  her  constitution  of  a  tumor  in  the  neck." 

"  She  died  under  an  operation  for  the  removal  of  that 
tumor,"  said  the  priest,  in  low  tones ;  "  and  the  operator 
was  your  Uncle  George." 

In  those  few  words  all  the  truth  burst  upon  me. 
.   "  Console  yourself  with  the  thought  that  the  long  mar- 


108  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

tyrdom  of  his  life  is  over,"  the  priest  Avent  on.  "  He 
rests ;  he  is  at  peace.  He  and  his  little  darling  under- 
stand each  other,  and  are  happy  now.  That  thought 
bore  him  up  to  the  last  on  his  death-bed.  He  always 
spoke  of  your  sister  as  his  '  little  darling.'  He  firmly  be- 
lieved that  she  was  waiting  to  forgive  and  console  him 
in  the  other  world — and  who  shall  say  he  was  deceived 
in  that  belief?" 

Not  I.  Not  any  one  who  has  ever  loved  and  suffered, 
surely. 

"  It  was  out  of  the  depths  of  his  self-sacrificing  love 
for  the  child  that  he  drew  the  fatal  courage  to  undertake 
the  operation,"  continued  the  priest.  "  Your  father  natu- 
rally shrank  from  attempting  it.  His  medical  brethren 
whom  he  consulted  all  doubted  the  propriety  of  taking 
any  measures  for  the  removal  of  the  tumor,  in  the  partic- 
ular condition  and  situation  of  it  when  they  were  called 
in.  Your  uncle  alone  differed  with  them.  He  was  too 
modest  a  man  to  say  so,  but  your  mother  found  it  out. 
The  deformity  of  her  beautiful  child  horrified  her.  She 
was  desperate  enough  to  catch  at  the  faintest  hope  of 
remedying  it  that  any  one  might  hold  out  to  her,  and  she 
persuaded  your  uncle  to  put  his  opinion  to  the  proof. 
Her  horror  at  the  deformity  of  the  child,  and  her  despair 
at  the  prospect  of  its  lasting  for  life,  seem  to  have  utterly 
blinded  her  to  all  natural  sense  of  the  danger  of  the  op- 
eration. It  is  hard  to  know  how  to  say  it  to  you,  her 
son,  but  it  must  be  told,  nevertheless,  that  one  day,  when 
your  father  -was  out,  she  untruly  informed  your  uncle 
that  his  brother  had  consented  to  the  performance  of  the 
operation,  and  that  he  had  gone  purposely  out  of  the 
house  because  he  had  not  nerve  enough  to  stay  and  wit- 
ness it.  After  that,  your  uncle  no  longer  hesitated.  He 
had  no  fear  of  results,  provided  he  could  be  certain  of 
his  own  courage.  All  he  dreaded  was  the  effect  on  him 


THE    (^1'KKN     OF    1IKAKTS.  109 

of  his  love  for  the  child  when  he  first  found  himself  face 
to  face  with  the  dreadful  necessity  of  touching  her  skin 
with  the  knife." 

I  tried  hard  to  control  myself,  but  I  could  not  repress 
a  shudder  at  those  words. 

"  It  is  useless  to  shock  you  by  going  into  particulars," 
said  the  priest,  considerately.  "  Let  it  be  enough  if  I 
say  that  your  uncle's  fortitude  failed  to  support  him  when 
he  wanted  it  most.  His  love  for  the  child  shook  the  firm 
hand  Avhich  had  never  trembled  before.  In  a  word,  the 
operation  failed.  Your  father  returned,  and  found  his 
child  dying.  The  phrensy  of  his  despair  when  the  truth 
was  told  him  carried  him  to  excesses  which  it  shocks  me 
to  mention — excesses  which  began  in  his  degrading  his 
brother  by  a  blow,  which  ended  in  his  binding  himself 
by  an  oath  to  make  that  brother  suffer  public  punishment 
for  his  fatal  rashness  in  a  court  of  law.  Your  uncle  was 
too  heart-broken  by  what  had  happened  to  feel  those  out- 
rages as  some  men  might  have  felt  them.  He  looked 
for  one  moment  at  his  sister-in-law  (I  do  not  like  to  say 
your  mother,  considering  what  I  have  now  to  tell  you), 
to  see  if  she  would  acknowledge  that  she  had  encouraged 
him  to  attempt  the  operation,  and  that  she  had  deceived 
him  in  saying  that  he  had  his  brother's  permission  to  try 
it.  She  was  silent,  and  when  she  spoke,  it  was  to  join 
her  husband  in  denouncing  him  as  the  murderer  of  their 
child.  Whether  fear  of  your  father's  anger,  or  revenge- 
ful indignation  against  your  uncle  most  actuated  her,  I 
ean  not  presume  to  inquire  in  your  presence.  I  can  only 
state  facts." 

The  priest  paused,  and  looked  at  me  anxiously.  I 
could  not  speak  to  him  at  that  moment — I  could  only 
encourage  him  to  proceed  by  pressing  his  hand. 

He  resumed  in  these  terms : 

"  Meanwhile,  your  uncle  turned  to  your  father,  and 


110  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

spoke  the  last  words  he  was  ever  to  address  to  his  eldest 
brother  in  this  world.  He  said,  '  I  have  deserved  the 
worst  your  anger  can  inflict  on  me,  but  I  will  spare  you 
the  scandal  of  bringing  me  to  justice  in  open  court.  The 
law,  if  it  found  me  guilty,  could  at  the  worst  but  banish 
me  from  my  country  and  my  friends.  I  will  go  of  my 
own  accord.  God  is  my  witness  that  I  honestly  believed 
I  could  save  the  child  from  deformity  and  suffering.  I 
have  risked  all  and  lost  all.  My  heart  and  spirit  are 
broken.  I  am  fit  for  nothing  but  to  go  and  hide  myself, 
and  my  shame  and  misery,  from  all  eyes  that  have  ever 
looked  on  me.  I  shall  never  come  back,  never  expect 
your  pity  or  forgiveness.  If  you  think  less  harshly  of 
me  when  I  am  gone,  keep  secret  what  has  happened  ;  let 
no  other  lips  say  of  me  what  yours  and  your  Avife's  have 
said.  I  shall  think  that  forbearance  atonement  enough — 
atonement  greater  than  I  have  deserved.  Forget  me  in 
this  world.  May  we  meet  in  another,  where  the  secrets 
of  all  hearts  are  opened,  and  where  the  child  who  is  gone 
before  may  make  peace  between  us !'  He  said  those 
words  and  went  out.  Your  father  never  saw  him  or 
heard  from  him  again." 

I  knew  the  reason  now  why  my  father  had  never  con- 
fided the  truth  to  any  one,  his  own  family  included.  My 
mother  had  evidently  confessed  all  to  her  sister  under 
the  seal  of  secrecy,  and  there  the  dreadful  disclosure  had 
been  arrested. 

"  Your  uncle  told  me,"  the  priest  continued,  "  that  be- 
fore he  left  England  he  took  leave  of  you  by  stealth,  in 
a  place  you  were  staying  at  by  the  sea-side.  He  had  not 
the  heart  to  quit  his  country  and  his  friends  forever  with- 
out kissing  you  for  the  last  time.  He  followed  you  in 
the  dark,  and  caught  you  up  in  his  arms,  and  left  you 
again  before  you  had  a  chance  of  discovering  him.  The 
next  day  he  quitted  England." 


THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS.  Ill 

"  For  this  place  ?"  I  asked. 

"  Yes.  He  had  spent  a  week  here  once  with  a  student 
friend  at  the  time  when  he  was  a  pupil  in  the  Hotel  Dieu, 
and  to  this  place  he  returned  to  hide,  to  suffer,  and  to  die. 
We  all  sa\v  that  he  was  a  man  crushed  and  broken  by 
some  great  sorrow,  and  we  respected  him  and  his  afflic- 
tion. He  lived  alone,  and  only  came  out  of  doors  toward 
evening,  when  he  used  to  sit  on  the  brow  of  the  hill  yon- 
der, with  his  head  on  his  hand,  looking  toward  England. 
That  place  seemed  a  favorite  with  him,  and  he  is  buried 
close  by  it.  He  revealed  the  story  of  his  past  life  to  no 
living  soul  here  but  me,  and  to  me  he  only  spoke  when 
his  last  hour  was  approaching.  What  he  had  suffered 
during  his  long  exile  no  man  can  presume  to  say.  I,  who 
saw  more  of  him  than  any  one,  never  heard  a  word  of 
complaint  fall  from  his  lips.  He  had  the  courage  of  the 
martyrs  while  he  lived,  and  the  resignation  of  the  saints 
when  he  died.  Just  at  the  last  his  mind  wandered. '  He 
said  he  saw  his  little  darling  waiting  by  the  bedside  to 
lead  him  away,  and  he  died  with  a  smile  on  his  face — the 
first  I  had  ever  seen  there." 

The  priest  ceased,  and  we  went  out  together  in  the 
mournful  twilight,  and  stood  for  a  little  while  on  the 
brow  of  the  hill  where  Uncle  George  used  to  sit,  with 
his  face  turned  toward  England.  How  my  heart  ached 
for  him  as  I  thought  of  what  he  must  have  suffered  in 
the  silence  and  solitude  of  his  long  exile !  Was  it  well 
for  me  that  I  had  discovered  the  Family  Secret  at  last  ? 
I  have  sometimes  thought  not.  I  have  sometimes  wish- 
ed that  the  darkness  had  never  been  cleared  away  which 
once  hid  from  me  the  fate  of  Uncle  George. 


THE  THIRD  DAY. 

FINE  again.  Our  guest  rode  out,  with  her  ragged  lit- 
tle groom,  as  usual.  There  was  no  news  yet  in  the  paper 
— that  is  to  say,  no  news  of  George  or  his  ship. 

On  this  day  Morgan  completed  his  second  story,  and 
in  two  or  three  clays  more  I  expected  to  finish  the  last 
of  my  own  contributions.  Owen  was  still  behindhand 
and  still  despondent. 

The  lot  drawn  to-night  was  Five.  This  proved  to  be 
the  number  of  the  first  of  Morgan's  stories,  which  he  had 
completed  before  we  began  the  readings.  His  second 
story,  finished  this  day,  being  still  unconnected  by  me, 
could  not  yet  be  added  to  the  common  stock. 

On  being  informed  that  it  had  come  to  his  turn  to  oc- 
cupy the  attention  of  the  company,  Morgan  startled  us 
by  immediately  objecting  to  the  trouble  of  reading  his 
own  composition,  and  by  coolly  handing  it  over  to  me, 
on  the  ground  that  my  numerous  corrections  had  made 
it,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  my  story. 

Owen  and  I  both  remonstrated  ;  and  Jessie,  mischiev- 
ously persisting  in  her  favorite  jest  at  Morgan's  expense, 
entreated  that  he  would  read,  if  it  was  only  for  her  sake. 
Finding  that  we  were  all  determined,  and  all  against 
him,  he  declared  that,  rather  than  hear  our  voices  any 
longer,  he  would  submit  to  the  minor  inconvenience  of 
listening  to  his  own.  Accordingly,  he  took  his  manu- 
script back  again,  and,  with  an  air  of  sm*ly  resignation, 
spread  it  open  before  him. 

"  I  don't  think  you  will  like  this  story,  miss,"  he  began, 
addressing  Jessie,  "but  I  shall  read  it,  nevertheless,  with 


114  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

the  greatest  pleasure.  It  begins  in  a  stable — it  gropes 
its  way  through  a  dream — it  keeps  company  with  an 
ostler — and  it  stops  without  an  end.  What  do  you  think 
of  that?" 

After  favoring  his  audience  with  this  promising  pref- 
ace, Morgan  indulged  himself  in  a  chuckle  of  supreme 
satisfaction,  and  then  began  to  read,  without  wasting 
another  preliminary  word  on  any  one  of  us. 


THE    yUKEN    OF    HEARTS.  115 


BROTHER  MORGAN'S  STORY 

OP 

THE  DREAM-WOMAN. 


CHAPTER  I. 

I  HAD  not  been  settled  much  more  than  six  weeks  in 
my  country  practice  when  I  was  sent  for  to  a  neighbor- 
ing town,  to  consult  with  the  resident  medical  man  there 
on  a  case  of  very  dangerous  illness. 

My  horse  had  come  down  with  me  at  the  end  of  a 
long  ride  the  night  before,  and  had  hurt  himself,  luckily, 
much  more  than  he  had  hurt  his  master.  Being  deprived 
of  the  animal's  services,  I  started  for  my  destination  by 
the  coach  (there  were  no  railways  at  that  time),  and  I 
hoped  to  get  back  again,  toward  the  afternoon,  in  the 
same  way. 

After  the  consultation  was  over,  I  went  to  the  princi- 
pal inn  of  the  town  to  wait  for  the  coach.  When  it 
came  up  it  was  full  inside  and  out.  There  was  no  re- 
source left  me  but  to  get  home  as  cheaply  as  I  could  by 
hiring  a  gig.  The  price  asked  for  this  accommodation 
struck  me  as  being  so  extortionate,  that  I  determined  to 
look  out  for  an  inn  of  inferior  pretensions,  and  to  try  if  I 
could  not  make  a  better  bargain  with  a  less  prosperous 
establishment. 

I  soon  found  a  likely-looking  house,  dingy  and  quiet, 
with  an  old-fashioned  sign,  that  had  evidently  not  been 
repainted  for  many  years  past.  The  landlord,  in  this 
case,  was  not  above  making  a  small  profit,  and  as  soon 


116  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

as  AVC  came  to  terms  he  rang  the  yard-bell  to  order  the 

gig- 

"  Has  Robert  not  come  back  from  that  errand  ?"  ask- 
ed the  landlord,  appealing  to  the  waiter  who  answered 
the  bell. 

u  Xo,  sir,  he  hasn't." 

"  Well,  then,  you  must  wake  up  Isaac." 

"  Wake  up  Isaac !"  I  repeated  ;  "  that  sounds  rather 
odd.  Do  your  ostlers  go  to  bed  in  the  daytim.e  ?" 

"  This  one  does,"  said  the  landlord,  smiling  to  himself 
in  rather  a  strange  way. 

"  And  dreams  too,"  added  the  waiter ;  "  I  sha'n't  for- 
get the  turn  it  gave  me  the  first  time  I  heard  him." 

"Never  you  mind  about  that,"  retorted  the  proprie- 
tor; "you  go  and  rouse  Isaac  up.  The  gentleman's 
waiting  for  his  gig." 

The  landlord's  manner  and  the  waiter's  manner  ex- 
pressed a  great  deal  more  than  they  either  of  them  said. 
I  began  to  suspect  that  I  might  be  on  the  trace  of  some- 
thing professionally  interesting  to  me  as  a  medical  man, 
and  I  thought  I  should  like  to  look  at  the  ostler  before 
the  waiter  awakened  him. 

"  Stop  a  minute,"  I  interposed  ;  "  I  have  rather  a  fan- 
cy for  seeing  this  man  before  you  wake  him  up.  I'm  a 
doctor ;  and  if  this  queer  sleeping  and  dreaming  of  his 
comes  from  any  thing  wrong  in  his  brain,  I  may  be  able 
to  tell  you  what  to  do  with  him." 

"I  rather  think  you  will  find  his  complaint  past  all 
doctoring,  sir,"  said  the  landlord  ;  "but,  if  you  would  like 
to  see  him,  you're  welcome,  I'm  sure." 

He  led  the  way  across  a  yard  and  down  a  passage  to 
the  stables,  opened  one  of  the  doors,  and,  waiting  outside 
himself,  told  me  to  look  in. 

I  found  myself  in  a  two-stall  stable.  In  one  of  the 
stalls  a  horse  was  munching  his  corn ;  in  the  other  an  old 
man  was  lying  asleep  on  the  litter. 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  117 

I  stooped  and  looked  at  him  attentively.  It  was  a 
withered,  woe-begone  face.  The  eyebrows  were  painful- 
ly contracted ;  the  mouth  was  fast  set,  and  drawn  down 
at  the  corners.  The  hollow  wrinkled  cheeks,  and  the 
scanty  grizzled  hair,  told  their  own  tale  of  some  past 
sorrow  or  suffering.  He  was  drawing  his  breath  con- 
vulsively when  I  first  looked  at  him,  and  in  a  moment 
more  he  began  to  talk  in  his  sleep. 

"  Wake  up !"  I  heard  him  say,  in  a  quick  whisper, 
through  his  clenched  teeth.  "  Wake  up  there !  Mur- 
der !" 

He  moved  one  lean  arm  slowly  till  it  rested  over 
his  throat,  shuddered  a  little,  and  turned  on  his  straw. 
Then  the  arm  left  his  throat,  the  hand  stretched  itself 
out,  and  clutched  at  the  side  toward  which  he  had  turn- 
ed, as  if  he  fancied  himself  to  be  grasping  at  the  edge  of 
something.  I  saw  his  lips  move,  and  bent  lower  over 
him.  He  was  still  talking  in  his  sleep. 

"  Light  gray  eyes,"  he  murmured,  "  and  a  droop  in 
the  left  eyelid ;  flaxen  hair,  with  a  gold-yellow  streak  in 
it — ail  right,  mother — fair  white  arms,  with  a  down  on 
them — little  lady's  hand,  with  a  reddish  look  under  the 
finger  nails.  The  knife — always  the  ctirsed  knife — first 
on  one  side,  then  on  the  other.  Aha!  you  she-devil, 
where's  the  knife  ?" 

At  the  last  word  his  voice  rose,  and  he  grew  restless 
on  a  sudden.  I  saw  him  shudder  on  the  straw ;  his 
withered  face  became  distorted,  and  he  threw  up  both 
his  hands  with  a  quick  hysterical  gasp.  They  struck 
against  the  bottom  of  the  manger  under  which  he  lay, 
and  the  blow  awakened  him.  I  had  just  time  to  slip 
through  the  door  and  close  it  before  his  eyes  were  fairly 
open,  and  his  senses  his  own  again. 

"  Do  you  know  any  thing  about  that  man's  past  life  ?" 
1  said  to  the  landlord. 


118  THE  QUEEX  OF  HEARTS. 

"  Yes,  sir,  I  know  pretty  well  all  about  it,"  was  the 
answer,  "  and  an  uncommon  queer  story  it  is.  Most 
people  don't  believe  it.  It's  true,  though,  for  all  that. 
Why,  just  look  at  him,"  continued  the  landlord,  opening 
the  stable  door  again.  "Poor  devil!  he's  so  worn  out 
with  his  restless  nights  that  he's  dropped  back  into  his 
sleep  already." 

"  Don't  wake  him,"  I  said ;  "  I'm  in  no  hurry  for  the 
gig.  Wait  till  the  other  man  comes  back  from  his  er- 
rand ;  and,  in  the  mean  time,  suppose  I  have  some  lunch 
and  a  bottle  of  sherry,  and  suppose  you  come  and  help 
me  to  get  through  it  ?" 

The  heart  of  mine  host,  as  I  had  anticipated,  warmed 
to  me  over  his  own  wine.  He  soon  became  communi- 
cative on  the  subject  of  the  man  asleep  in  the  stable,  and 
by  little  and  little  I  drew-  the  whole  story  out  of  him. 
Extravagant  and  incredible  as  the  events  must  appear  to 
every  body,  they  are  related  here  just  as  I  heard  them 
and  just  as  they  happened. 


CHAPTER  II. 

SOME  years  ago  there  lived  in  the  suburbs  of  a  large 
sea-port  town  on  the  west  coast  of  England  a  man  in 
humble  circumstances,  by  name  Isaac  Scatchard.  His 
means  of  subsistence  were  derived  from  any  employment 
that  he  could  get  as  an  ostler,  and  occasionally,  when 
times  went  well  with  him,  from  temporary  engagements 
in  service  as  stable-helper  in  private  houses.  Though  a 
faithful,  steady,  and  honest  man,  he  got  on  badly  in  his 
calling.  His  ill  luck  was  proverbial  among  his  neigh- 
bors. He  was  always  missing  good  opportunities  by  no 
fault  of  his  own,  and  always  living  longest  in  service  with 
amiable  people  who  were  not  punctual  payers  of  wages. 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  119 

"Unlucky  Isaac"  was  his  nickname  in  his  own  neighbor- 
hood, and  no  one  could  say  that  he  did  not  richly  de- 
serve it. 

With  far  more  than  one  man's  fair  share  of  adversity 
to  endure,  Isaac  had  but  one  consolation  to  support  him, 
and  that  was  of  the  dreariest  and  most  negative  kind. 
He  had  no  wife  and  children  to  increase  his  anxieties  and 
add  to  the  bitterness  of  his  various  failures  in  life.  It 
might  have  been  from  mere  insensibility,  or  it  might 
have  been  from  generous  unwillingness  to  involve  anoth- 
er in  his  own  unlucky  destiny;  but  the* fact  undoubtedly 
was,  that  he  had  arrived  at  the  middle  term  of  life  with- 
out marrying,  and,  what  is  much  more  remarkable,  with- 
out once  exposing  himself,  from  eighteen  to  eight-and- 
thirty,  to  the  genial  imputation  of  ever  having  had  a 
sweetheart. 

When  he  was  out  of  service  he  lived  alone  with  his 
widowed  mother.  Mrs.  Scatchard  was  a  woman  above 
the  average  in  her  lowly  station  as  to  capacity  and  man- 
ners. She  had  seen  better  days,  as  the  phrase  is,  but  she 
never  referred  to  them  in  the  presence  of  curious  visit- 
ors ;  and,  though  perfectly  polite  to  every  one  who  ap- 
proached her,  never  cultivated  any  intimacies  among  her 
neighbors.  She  contrived  to  provide,  hardly  enough,  for 
her  simple  wants  by  doing  rough  work  for  the  tailors, 
and  always  managed  to  keep  a  decent  home  for  her  son 
to  return  to  whenever  his  ill  luck  drove  him  out  helpless 
into  the  world. 

One  bleak  autumn,  when  Isaac  was  getting  on  fast 
toward,  forty,  and  when  he  was,  as  usual,  out  of  place 
through  no  fault  of  his  own,  he  set  forth  from  his  moth- 
er's cottage  on  a  long  walk  inland  to  a  gentleman's  seat 
where  he  had  heard  that  a  stable-helper  was  required. 

It  wanted  then  but  two  days  of  his  birthday ;  and  Mrs. 
Scatchard,  with  her  usual  fondness,  made  him  promise, 

a 


120  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

before  he  started,  that  he  would  be  back  hi  time  to  keep 
that  anniversary  with  her,  in  as  festive  a  way  as  their 
poor  means  would  allow.  It  was  easy  for  him  to  com- 
ply with  this  request,  even  supposing  he  slept  a  night 
each  way  on  the  road. 

He  was  to  start  from  home  on  Monday  morning,  and, 
whether  he  got  the  new  place  or  not,  he  was  to  be  back 
for  his  birthday  dinner  on  Wednesday  at  two  o'clock. 

Arriving  at  his  destination  too  late  on  the  Monday 
night  to  make  application  for  the  stable-helper's  place,  he 
slept  at  the  village  inn,  and  in  good  time  on  the  Tuesday 
morning  presented  himself  at  the  gentleman's  house  to 
fill  the  vacant  situation.  Here  again  his  ill  luck  pursued 
him  as  inexorably  as  ever.  The  excellent  written  testi- 
monials to  his  character  which  he  was  able  to  produce 
availed  him  nothing;  his  long  walk  had  been  taken  in 
vain :  only  the  day  before  the  stable-helper's  place  had 
been  given  to  another  man. 

Isaac  accepted  this  new  disappointment  resignedly  and 
as  a  matter  of  course.  Naturally  slow  in  capacity,  he 
had  the  bluntness  of 'sensibility  and  phlegmatic  patience 
of  disposition  which  frequently  distinguish  men  with 
sluggishly  -  working  mental  powers.  He  thanked  the 
gentleman's  steward  with  his  usual  quiet  civility  for 
granting  him  an  interview,  and  took  his  departure  with 
no  appearance  of  unusual  depression  in  his  face  or  man- 
ner. 

Before  starting  on  his  homeward  walk,  he  made  some 
inquiries  at  the  inn,  and  ascertained  that  he  might  save  a 
few  miles  on  his  return  by  following  a  new  road.  Fur- 
nished with  full  instructions,  several  times  repeated,  as 
to  the  various  turnings  he  was  to  take,  he  set  forth  on 
his  homeward  journey,  and  walked  on  all  day  with  only 
one  stoppage  for  bread  and  cheese.  Just  as  it  was  get- 
ting toward  dark,  the  rain  came  on  and  the  wind  began 


THE    QUEEN    OP    HEARTS.  121 

to  rise,  and  he  found  himself,  to  make  matters  worse,  in 
a  part  of  the  country  with  which  he  was  entirely  unac- 
quainted, though  he  knew  himself  to  be  some  fifteen 
miles  from  home.  The  first  house  he  found  to  inquire  at 
was  a  lonely  roadside  inn,  standing  on  the  outskirts  of  a 
thick  wood.  Solitary  as  the  place  looked,  it  was  wel- 
come to  a  lost  man  who  was  also  hungry,  thirsty,  foot- 
sore, and  wet.  The  landlord  was  civil  and  respectable- 
looking,  and  the  price  he  asked  for  a  bed  was  reasonable 
enough.  Isaac  therefore  decided  on  stopping  comforta- 
bly at  the  inn  for  that  night. 

He  was  constitutionally  a  temperate  man.  His  supper 
consisted  of  two  rashers  of  bacon,  a  slice  of  home-made 
bread,  and  a  pint  of  ale.  He  did  not  go  to  bed  immedi- 
ately after  this  moderate  meal,  but  sat  up  with  the  land- 
lord, talking  about  his  bad  prospects  and  his  long  run  of 
ill  luck,  and  diverging  from  these  topics  to  the  subjects 
of  horse-flesh  and  racing.  Nothing  was  said  either  by 
himself,  his  host,  or  the  few  laborers  who  strayed  into 
the  tap-room,  which  could,  in  the  slightest  degree,  excite 
the  very  small  and  very  dull  imaginative  faculty  which 
Isaac  Scatchard  possessed. 

At  a  little  after  eleven  the  house  was  closed.  Isaac 
went  round  with  the  landlord  and  held  the  candle  while 
the  doors  and  lower  windows  were  being  secured.  He 
noticed  with  surprise  the  strength  of  the  bolts  and  bars, 
and  iron-sheathed  shutters. 

"  You  see,  we  are  rather  lonely  here,"  said  the  land- 
lord. "  We  never  have  had  any  attempts  made  to  break 
in  yet,  but  it's  always  as  well  to  be  on  the  safe  side. 
When  nobody  is  sleeping  here,  I  am  the  only  man  in  the 
house.  My  wife  and  daughter  are  timid,  and  the  serv- 
ant-girl takes  after  her  missuses.  Another  glass  of  ale 
before  you  turn  in  ?  No !  Well,  how  such  a  sober  man 
as  you  comes  to  be  out  of  place  is  more  than  I  can  make 


122  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

out,  for  one.  Here's  where  you're  to  sleep.  You're  our 
only  lodger  to-night,  and  I  think  you'll  say  my  missus 
has  done  her  best  to  make  you  comfortable.  You're 
quite  sure  you  won't  have  another  glass  of  ale  ?  Very 
well.  Good-night." 

It  was  half  past  eleven  by  the  clock  in  the  passage  as 
they  went  up  stairs  to  the  bedroom,  the  window  of 
which  looked  on  to  the  wood  at  the  back  of  the  house. 

Isaac  locked  the  door,  set  his  candle  on  the  chest  of 
drawers,  and  wearily  got  ready  for  bed.  The  bleak  au- 
tumn wind  was  still  blowing,  and  the  solemn,  monoto- 
nous, surging  moan  of  it  in  the  wood  was  dreary  and 
awful  to  hear  through  the  night-silence.  Isaac  felt 
strangely  wakeful.  He  resolved,  as  he  lay  down  in  bed, 
to  keep  the  candle  alight  until  he  began  to  grow  sleepy, 
-for  there  was  something  unendurably  depressing  in  the 
bare  idea  of  lying  awake  in  the  darkness,  listening  to  the 
dismal,  ceaseless  moaning  of  the  wind  in  the  wood. 

Sleep  stole  on  him  before  he  was  aware  of  it.  His 
eyes  closed,  and  he  fell  off  insensibly  to  rest  without  hav- 
ing so  much  as  thought  of  extinguishing  the  candle. 

The  first  sensation  of  which  he  was  conscious  after 
sinking  into  slumber  was  a  strange  shivering  that  ran 
through  him  suddenly  from  head  to  foot,  and  a  dreadful 
sinking  pain  at  the  heart,  such  as  he  had  never  felt  be- 
fore. The  shivering  only  disturbed  his  slumbers;  the 
pain  woke  him  instantly.  In  one  moment  he  passed  from 
a  state  of  sleep  to  a  state  of  wakefulness — his  eyes  wide 
open — his  mental  perceptions  cleared  on  a  sudden,  as  if 
by  a  miracle. 

The  candle  had  burnt  down  nearly  to  the  last  morsel 
of  tallow,  but  the  top  of  the  unsnuffed  wick  had  just 
fallen  off,  and  the  light  in  the  little  room  was,  for  the  mo- 
ment, fair  «nd  full. 

Between  the  foot  of  his  bed  and  the  closed  door  there 


THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS.  123 

stood  a  woman  with  a  knife  in  her  hand,  looking  at 
him. 

He  was  stricken  speechless  with  terror,  but  he  did  not 
lose  the  preternatural  clearness  of  his  faculties,  and  he 
never  took  his  eyes  off  the  woman.  She  said  not  a  word 
as  they  stared  each  other  in  the  face,  but  she  began  to 
move  slowly  toward  the  left-hand  side  of  the  bed. 

His  eyes  followed  her.  She  was  a  fair,  fine  Avoman, 
with  yellowish  flaxen  hair  and  light  gray  eyes,  with  a 
'  droop  in  the  left  eyelid.  He  noticed  those  things  and  fixed 
them  on  his  mind  before  she  was  round  at  the  side  of  the 
bed.  Speechless,  with  no  expression  in  her  face,  with  no 
noise  following  her  footfall,  she  came  closer  and  closer — 
stopped — and  slowly  raised  the  knife.  He  laid  his  right 
arm  over  his  throat  to  save  it ;  but,  as  he  saw  the  knife 
coming  clown,  threw  his  hand  across  the  bed  to  the  right 
side,  and  jerked  his  body  over  that  way  just  as  the  knife 
descended  on  the  mattress  within  an  inch  of  his  shoulder. 

His  eyes  fixed  on  her  arm  and  hand  as  she  slowly  drew 
her  knife  out  of  the  bed :  a  white,  well-shaped  arm,  with 
a  pretty  down  lying  lightly  over  the  fair  skin — a  delicate 
lady's  hand,  with  the  crowning  beauty  of  a  pink  flush 
under  and  round  the  finger  nails. 

She  drew  the  knife  out,  and  passed  back  again  slowly 
to  the  foot  of  the  bed ;  stopped  there  for  a  moment  look- 
ing at  him ;  then  came  on — still  speechless,  still  with  no 
expression  on  the  blank,  beautiful  face,  still  with  no  sound 
following  the  stealthy  footfalls — came  on  to  the  right 
side  of  the  bed,  where  he  now  lay. 

As  she  approached  she  raised  the  knife  again,  and  he 
drew  himself  away  to  the  left  side.  She  struck,  as  be- 
fore, right  into  the  mattress,  with  a  deliberate,  perpen- 
dicularly-downward action  of  the  arm.  This  time  his 
eyes  wandered  from  her  to  the  knife.  It  was  like  the 
large  clasp-knives  which  he  had  often  seen  laboring  men 


124  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

use  to  cut  their  bread  and  bacon  with.  Her  delicate 
little  fingers  did  not  conceal  more  than  two  thirds  of  the 
handle :  he  noticed  that  it  was  made  of  buck-horn,  clean 
and  shining  as  the  blade  was,  and  looking  like  new. 

For  the  second  time  she  drew  the  knife  out,  concealed 
it  in  the  wide  sleeve  of  her  gown,  then  stopped  by  the 
bedside,  watching  him.  For  an  instant  he  saw  her  stand- 
ing in  that  position,  then  the  wick  of  the  spent  candle 
fell  over  into  the  socket ;  the  flame  diminished  to  a  little 
blue  point,  and  the  room  grew  dark. 

A  moment,  or  less,  if  possible,  .passed  so,  and  then  the 
wick  flamed  up,  smokingly,  for  the  last  time.  His  eyes 
were  still  looking  eagerly  over  the  right-hand  side  of  the 
bed  when  the  final  flash  of  light  came,  but  they  discerned 
nothing.  The  fair  woman  with  the  knife  was  gone. 

The  conviction  that  he  was  alone  again  weakened  the 
hold  of  the  terror  that  had  struck  him  dumb  up  to  this 
time.  The  preternatural  sharpness  which  the  very  in- 
tensity of  his  panic  had  mysteriously  imparted  to  his 
faculties  left  them  suddenly.  His  brain  grew  confused 
— his  heart  beat  wildly — his  ears  opened  for  the  first 
time  since  the  appearance  of  the  woman  to  a  sense  of  the 
woeful  ceaseless  moaning  of  the  wind  among  the  trees. 
With  the  dreadful  conviction  of  the  reality  of  what  he 
had  seen  still  strong  within  him,  he  leaped  out  of  bed, 
and  screaming  "  Murder !  Wake  up,  there !  wake  up !" 
dashed  headlong  through  the  darkness  to  the  door. 

It  was  fast  locked,  exactly  as  he  had  left  it  on  going 
to  bed. 

His  cries  on  starting  up  had  alarmed  the  house.  He 
heard  the  terrified,  confused  exclamations  of  women ;  he 
*aw  the  master  of  the  house  approaching  along  the  pas- 
sage with  his  burning  rush-candle  in  one  hand  and  his 
gun  in  the  other. 

"  What  is  it  ?"  asked  the  landlord,  breathlessly. 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  125 

Isaac  could  only  answer  in  a  whisper.  "A  woman, 
with  a  knife  in  her  hand,"  he  gasped  out.  "  In  my  room 
— a  fair,  yellow-haired  woman ;  she  jobbed  at  me  with 
the  knife  twice  over." 

The  landlord's  pale  cheeks  grew  paler.  He  looked  at 
Isaac  eagerly  by  the  flickering  light  of  his  candle,  and 
his  face  began  to  get  red  again ;  his  voice  altered,  too, 
as  well  as  his  complexion. 

"  She  seems  to  have  missed  you  twice,"  he  said. 

"  I  dodged  the  knife  as  it  came  down,"  Isaac  went  on, 
in  the  same  scared  whisper.  "  It  struck  the  bed  each 
time." 

The  landlord  took  his  candle  into  the  bedroom  imme- 
diately. In  less  than  a  minute  he  came  out  again  into 
the  passage  in  a  violent  passion. 

"  The  devil  fly  away  with  you  and  your  woman  with 
the  knife!  There  isn't  a  mark  in  the  bedclothes  any 
where.  What  do  you  mean  by  coming  into  a  man's 
place,  and  frightening  his  family  out  of  their  wits  about 
a  dream  ?" 

"  I'll  leave  your  house,"  said  Isaac,  faintly.  "  Better 
out  on  the  road,  in  rain  and  dark,  on  my  road  home,  than 
back  again  in  that  room,  after  what  I've  seen  in  it.  Lend 
me  a  light  to  get  my  clothes  by,  and  tell  me  what  I'm  to 
pay." 

"  Pay !"  cried  the  landlord,  leading  the  way  with  his 
light  sulkily  into  the  bedroom.  "  You'll  find  your  score 
on  the  slate  when  you  go  down  stairs.  I  wouldn't  have 
taken  you  in  for  all  the  money  you've  got  about  you  if 
I'd  known  your  dreaming,  screeching  ways  beforehand. 
Look  at  the  bed.  Where's  the  cut  of  a  knife  in  it  ? 
Look  at  the  window — is  the  lock  bursted  ?  Look  at  the 
door  (which  I  heard  you  fasten  yourself) — is  it  broke 
in  ?  A  murdering  woman  with  a  knife  in  my  house ! 
You  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  yourself !" 


126  THE    QUEE^    OF    HEARTS. 

Isaac  answered  not  a  word.  He  huddled  on  his  clothes, 
and  then  they  went  down  stairs  together. 

"  Nigh  on  twenty  minutes  past  two !"  said  the  land- 
lord, as  they  passed  the  clock.  "  A  nice  time  in  the 
morning  to  frighten  honest  people  out  of  their  wits !" 

Isaac  paid  his  bill,  and  the  landlord  let  him  out  at  the 
front  door,  asking,  with  a  grin  of  contempt,  as  he  undid 
the  strong  fastenings,  whether  "  the  murdering  woman 
got  in  that  way." 

They  parted  without  a  word  on  either  side.  The  rain 
had  ceased,  but  the  night  was  dark,  and  the  wind  bleaker 
than  ever.  Little  did  the  darkness,  or  the  cold,  or  the 
uncertainty  about  the  way  home  matter  to  Isaac.  If  he 
had  been  turned  out  into  a  wilderness  in  a  thunder-storm, 
it  would  have  been  a  relief  after  what  he  had  suffered  in 
the  bedroom  of  the  inn. 

What  was  the  fair  woman  with  the  knife  ?  The  crea- 
ture of  a  dream,  or  that  other  creature  from  the  unknown 
world  called  among  men  by  the  name  of  ghost  ?  He 
could  make  nothing  of  the  mystery — had  made  nothing 
of  it,  even  when  it  was  midday  on  Wednesday,  and  when 
he  stood,  at  last,  after  many  times  missing  his  road,  once 
more  on  the  doorstep  of  home. 


CHAPTER  IH. 

His  mother  came  out  eagerly  to  receive  him.  His 
face  told  her  in  a  moment  that  something  was  wrong. 

"I've  lost  the  place;  but  that's  my  luck.  I  dreamed 
an  ill  dream  last  night,  mother — or  maybe  I  saw  a  ghost. 
Take  it  either  way,  it  scared  me  out  of  my  senses,  and 
I'm  not  my  own  man  again  yet." 

"  Isaac,  your  face  frightens  me.  Come  in  to  the  fire 
— come  in,  and  tell  mother  all  about  it." 


THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS.  127 

He  was  as  anxious  to  tell  as  she  was  to  hear;  for  it 
had  been  his  hope,  all  the  way  home,  that  his  mother, 
Avith  her  quicker  capacity  and  superior  knowledge,  might 
be  able  to  throw  some  light  on  the  mystery  which  he 
could  not  clear  up  for  himself.  His  memory  of  the  dream 
was  still  mechanically  vivid,  though  his  thoughts  were 
entirely  confused  by  it. 

His  mother's  face  grew  paler  and  paler  as  lie  went  on. 
She  never  interrupted  him  by  so  much  as  a  single  word  ; 
but  when  he  had  done,  she  moved  her  chair  close  to  his, 
put  her  arm  round  his  neck,  and  said  to  him, 

"  Isaac,  you  dreamed  your  ill  dream  on  this  Wednes- 
day morning.  What  time  was  it  when  you  saw  the  fair 
woman  with  the  knife  in  her  hand  ?" 

Isaac  reflected  on  what  the  landlord  had  said  when 
they  had  passed  by  the  clock  on  his  leaving  the  inn  ;  al- 
lowed as  nearly  as  he  could  for  the  time  that  must  have 
elapsed  between  the  unlocking  of  his  bedroom  door  and 
the  paying  of  his  bill  just  before  going  away,  and  an- 
swered, 

"  Somewhere  about  two  o'clock  in  the  morning." 

His  mother  suddenly  quitted  her  hold  of  his  neck,  and 
struck  her  hands  together  writh  a  gesture  of  despair. 

"  This  Wednesday  is  your  birthday,  Isaac,  and  two 
o'clock  iu  the  morning  wras  the  time  when  you  were 
born." 

Isaac's  capacities  were  not  quick  enough  to  catch  the 
infection  of  his  mother's  superstitious  dread.  He  was 
amazed,  and  a  little  startled  also,  when  she  suddenly  ro^e 
from  her  chair,  opened  her  old  writing-desk,  took  pen, 
ink,  and  paper,  and  then  said  to  him, 

"  Your  memory  is  but  a  poor  one,  Isaac,  and,  now  I'm 
an  old  woman,  mine's  not  much  better.  I -want  all  about 
this  dream  of  yours  to  be  as  well  known  to  both  of  us, 
years  hence,  as  it  is  now.  Tell  me  over  again  all  you 

6* 


128  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

told  me  a  minute  ago,  when  you  spoke  of  what  the  wom- 
an with  the  knife  looked  like." 

Isaac  obeyed,  and  marveled  much  as  he  saw  his  moth- 
er carefully  set  down  on  paper  the  very  words  that  he 
was  saying. 

"  Light  gray  eyes,"  she  wrote,  as  they  came  to  the  de- 
scriptive part,  "  with  a  droop  in  the  left  eyelid ;  flaxen 
hair,  Avith  a  gold-yelloAv  streak  in  it ;  Avhite  arms,  with  a 
doAvn  upon  them ;  little  lady's  hand,  Avith  a  reddish  look 
about  the  finger  nails  ;  clasp-knife  with  a  buck-horn  han- 
dle, that  seemed  as  good  as  new."  To  these  particulars 
Mrs.  Scatchard  added  the  year,  month,  day  of  the  Aveek, 
and  time  in  the  morning  Avhen  the  woman  of  the  dream 
appeared  to  her  son.  She  then  locked  up  the  paper  care- 
fully in  her  writing-desk. 

Neither  on  that  day  nor  on  any  day  after  could  her 
son  induce  her  to  return  to  the  matter  of  the  dream.  She 
obstinately  kept  her  thoughts  about'  it  to  herself,  and 
even  refused  to  refer  again  to  the  paper  in  her  Avriting- 
desk.  Ere  long  Isaac  grew  Aveary  of  attempting  to  make 
her  break  her  resolute  silence ;  and  time,  Avhich  sooner  or 
later  wears  out  all  things,  gradually  wore  out  the  im- 
pression produced  on  him  by  the  dream.  He  began  by 
thinking  of  it  carelessly,  and  he  ended  by  not  thinking 
of  it  at  all. 

The  result  was  the  more  easily  brought  about  by  the 
advent  of  some  important  changes  for  the  better  in  his 
prospects  which  commenced  not  long  after  his  terrible 
night's  experience  at  the  inn.  He  reaped  at  last  the  re- 
Avard  of  his  long  and  patient  suffering  under  adversity 
by  getting  an  excellent  place,  keeping  it  for  seven  years, 
and  leaA'ing  it,  on  the  death  of  his  master,  not  only  with 
an  excellent  character,  but  also  Avith  a  comfortable  annu- 
ity bequeathed  to  him  as  a  reward  for  saving  his  mis- 
tress's life  in  a  carriage  accident.  Thus  it  happened  that 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  129 

Isaac  Scatchard  returned  to  his  old  mother,  seven  years 
after  the  time  of  the  dream  at  the  inn,  with  an  annual 
sum  of  money  at  his  disposal  sufficient  to  keep  them 
both  in  ease  and  independence  for  the  rest  of  their  lives. 

The  mother,  whose  health  had  been  bad  of  late  years, 
profited  so  much  by  the  care  bestowed  on  her  and  by 
freedom  from  money  anxieties,  that  when  Isaac's  birth- 
day came  round  she  was  able  to  sit  up  comfortably  at  ta- 
ble and  dine  with  him. 

On  that  day,  as  the  evening  drew  on,  Mrs.  Scatchard 
discovered  that  a  bottle  of  tonic  medicine  which  she  was 
accustomed  to  take,  and  in  which  she  had  fancied  that  a 
dose  or  more  was  still  left,  happened  to  be  empty.  Isaac 
immediately  volunteered  to  go  to  the  chemist's  and  get 
it  filled  again.  It  was  as  rainy  and  bleak  an  autumn 
night  as  on  the  memorable  past  occasion  when  he  lost  his 
way  and  slept  at  the  road-side  inn. 

On  going  into  the  chemist's  shop  he  was  passed  hur- 
riedly by  a  poorly-dressed  woman  coming  out  of  it. 
The  glimpse  he  had  of  her  face  struck  him,  and  he  looked 
back  after  her  as  she  descended  the  door-steps. 

"You're  noticing  that  woman?"  said  the  chemist's 
apprentice  behind  the  counter.  "  It's  my  opinion  there's 
something  wrong  with  her.  She's  been  asking  for  laud- 
anum to  put  to  a  bad  tooth.  Master's  out  for  half  an 
hour,  and  I  told  her  I  wasn't  allowed  to  sell  poison  to 
strangers  in  his  absence.  She  laughed  in  a  queer  way, 
and  said  she  would  come  back  in  half  an  hour.  If  she 
expects  master  to  serve  her,  I  think  she'll  be  disappoint- 
ed. It's  a  case  of  suicide,  sir,  if  ever  there  was  one 

yet." 

These  words  added  immeasurably  to  the  sudden  inter- 
est in  the  woman  which  Isaac  had  felt  at  the  first  sight 
of  her  face.  After  he  had  got  the  medicine-bottle  filled, 
he  looked  about  anxiously  for  her  as  soon  as  he  was  out 


130  THE    QUEEX    OF  "HEARTS. 

in  the  street.  She  was  walking  slowly  up  and  down  on 
the  opposite  side  of  the  road.  With  his  heart,  very 
much  to  his  own  surprise,  beating  fast,  Isaac  crossed 
over  and  spoke  to  her. 

He  asked  if  she  was  in  any  distress.  She  pointed  to 
her  torn  shawl,  her  scanty  dress,  her  crushed,  dirty  bon- 
net ;  then  moved  under  a  lamp  so  as  to  let  the  light  fall 
on  her  stern,  pale,  but  still  most  beautiful  face. 

"  I  look  like  a  comfortable,  happy  woman,  don't  I  ?" 
she  said,  with  a  bitter  laugh. 

She  spoke  with  a  purity  of  intonation  which  Isaac  had 
never  heard  before  from  other  than  ladies'  lips.  Her 
slightest  actions  seemed  to  have  the  easy,  negligent  grace 
of  a  thorough-bred  woman.  Her  skin,  for  all  its  pover- 
ty-stricken paleness,  was  as  delicate  as  if  her  life  had 
been  passed  in  the  enjoyment  of  every  social  comfort 
that  wealth  can  purchase.  Even  her  small,  finely-shaped 
hands,  gloveless  as  they  were,  had  not  lost  their  white- 
ness. 

Little  by  little,  in  answer  to  his  questions,  the  sad 
story  of  the  woman  came  out.  There  is  no  need  to  re- 
late it  here;  it  is  told  over  and  over  again  in  police  re- 
ports and  paragraphs  about  attempted  suicides. 

"  My  name  is  Rebecca  Murdoch,"  said  the  woman,  as 
she  ended.  "  I  have  ninepence  left,  and  I  thought  of 
spending  it  at  the  chemist's  over  the  way  in  securing  a 
passage  to  the  other  world.  Whatever  it  is,  it  can't  be 
worse  to  me  than  this,  so  why  should  I  stop  here  ?" 

Besides  the  natural  compassion  and  sadness  moved  in 
his  heart  by  what  he  heard,  Isaac  felt  within  him  some 
mysterious  influence  at  work  all  the  time  the  woman  was 
speaking  which  utterly  confused  his  ideas  and  almost 
deprived  him  of  his  powers  of  speech.  All  that  he  could 
say  in  answer  to  her  last  reckless  words  was  that  he 
would  prevent  her  from  attempting  her  own  life,  if  he 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  131 

followed  her  about  all  night  to  do  it.  His  rough,  trem- 
bling earnestness  seemed  to  impress  her. 

"  I  won't  occasion  you  that  trouble,"  she  answered, 
when  he  repealed  his  threat.  "You  have  given  me  a 
fancy  for  living  by  speaking  kindly  to  me.  No  need  for 
the  mockery  of  protestations  and  promises.  You  may 
believe  me  without  them.  Come  to  Fuller's  Meadow  to- 
morrow at  twelve,  and  you  will  find  me  alive,  to  answer 
for  myself — No! — no  money.  My  ninepence  will  do  to 
get  me  as  good  a  night's  lodging  as  I  want." 

She  nodded  and  left  him.  He  made  no  attempt  to 
follow — he  felt  no  suspicion  that  she  was  deceiving  him. 

"It's  strange,  but  I  can't  help  believing  her,"  he  said 
to  himself,  and  walked  away,  bewildered,  toward  home. 

On  entering  the  house,  his  mind  was  still  so  complete- 
ly absorbed  by  its  new  subject  of  interest  that  he  took 
no  notice  of  what  his  mother  was  doing  when  he  came 
in  with  the  bottle  of  medicine.  She  had  opened  her  old 
writing-desk  in  his  absence,  and  was  now  reading  a  paper 
attentively  that  lay  inside  it.  On  every  birthday  of 
Isaac's  since  she  had  written  down  the  particulars  of  his 
dream  from  his  own  lips,  she  had  been  accustomed  to 
read  that  same  paper,  and  ponder  over  it  in  private. 

The  next  day  he  went  to  Fuller's  Meadow. 

He  had  done  only  right  in  believing  her  so  implicitly. 
She  was  there,  punctual  to  a  minute,  to  answer  for  her- 
self. The  last-left  faint  defenses  in  Isaac's  heart  against 
the  fascination  which  a  word  or  look  from  her  began  in- 
scrutably to  exercise  over  him  sank  down  and  vanished 
before  her  forever  on  that  memorable  morning. 

When  a  man  previously  insensible  to  the  influence  of 
women  forms  an  attachment  in  middle  life,  the  instances 
are  rare  indeed,  let  the  warning  circumstances  be  what 
they  may,  in  which  lie  is  found  capable  of  freeing  himself 
from  the  tyranny  of  the  new  ruling  passion.  The  charm 


132  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

of  being  spoken  to  familiarly,  fondly,  and  gratefully  by 
a  woman  whose  language  and  manners  still  retained 
enough  of  their  early  refinement  to  hint  at  the  high  so- 
cial station  that  she  had  lost,  woidd  have  been  a  danger- 
ous luxury  to  a  man  of  Isaac's  rank  at  the  age  of  tAventy. 
But  it  was  far  more  than  that — it  was  certain  ruin  to 
him — now  that  his  heart  was  opening  unworthily  to  a 
new  influence  at  that  middle  time  of  life  when  strong 
feelings  of  all  kinds,  once  implanted,  strike  root  most 
stubbornly  in  a  man's  moral  nature.  A  few  more  stolen 
interviews  after  that  first  morning  in  Fuller's  Meadow 
completed  his  infatuation.  In  less  than  a  month  from 
the  time  when  he  first  met  her,  Isaac  Scatchard  had  con- 
sented to  give  Rebecca  Murdoch  a  new  interest  in  exist- 
ence, and  a  chance  of  recovering  the  character  she  had 
lost  by  promising  to  make  her  his  wife. 

She  had  taken  possession,  not  of  his  passions  only,  but 
of  his  faculties  as  well.  All  the  mind  he  had  he  put  into 
her  keeping.  She  directed  him  on  every  point  —  even 
instructing  him  how  to  break  the  news  of  his  approach- 
ing marriage  in  the  safest  manner  to  his  mother. 

"If  you  tell  her  how  you  met  me  and  who  I  am  at 
first,"  said  the  cunning  woman,  "  she  will  move  heaven 
and  earth  to  prevent  our  marriage.  Say  I  am  the  sister 
of  one  of  your  fellow-servants — ask  her  to  see  me  before 
you  go  into  any  more  particulars — and  leave  it  to  me  to 
do  the  rest.  I  mean  to  make  her  love  me  next  best  to  you, 
Isaac,  before  she  knows  any  thing  of  who  I  really  am." 

The  motive  of  the  deceit  was  sufficient  to  sanctify  it 
to  Isaac.  The  stratagem  proposed  relieved  him  of  his 
one  great  anxiety,  and  quieted  his  uneasy  conscience  on 
the  subject  of  his  mother.  Still,  there  was  something 
wanting  to  perfect  his  happiness,  something  that  he 
could  not  realize,  something  mysteriously  untraceable, 
and  yet  something  that  perpetually  made  itself  felt ;  not 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  133 

when  he  was  absent  from  Rebecca  Murdoch,  but,  strange 
to  say,  when  he  was  actually  in  her  presence !  She  was 
kindness  itself  with  him.  She  never  made  him  feel  his 
inferior  capacities  and  inferior  manners.  She  showed 
the  sweetest  anxiety  to  please  him  in  the  smallest  trifles ; 
but,  in  spite  of  all  these  attractions,  he  never  could  feel 
quite  at  his  ease  with  her.  At  their  first  meeting,  there 
had  mingled  with  his  admiration,  when  he  looked  in  her 
face,  a  faint,  involuntary  feeling  of  doubt  whether  that 
face  was  entirely  strange  to  him.  No  after  familiarity 
had  the  slightest  effect  on  this  inexplicable,  wearisome 
uncertainty. 

Concealing  the  truth  as  he  had  been  directed,  he  an- 
nounced his  marriage  engagement  precipitately  and  con- 
fusedly to  his  mother  on  the  day  wrhen  he  contracted  it. 
Poor  Mrs.  Scatchard  showed  her  perfect  confidence  in 
her  son  by  flinging  her  arms  round  his  neck,  and  giving 
him  joy  of  having  found  at  last,  in  the  sister  of  one  of 
his  fellow-servants,  a  woman  to  comfort  and  care  for  him 
after  his  mother  was  gone.  She  was  all  eagerness  to  see 
the  woman  of  her  son's  choice,  and  the  next  day  was 
fixed  for  the  introduction. 

It  was  a  bright  sunny  morning,  and  the  little  cottage 
parlor  was  full  of  light  as  Mrs.  Scatchard,  happy  and  ex- 
pectant, dressed  for  the  occasion  in  her  Sunday  gown, 
sat  waiting  for  her  son  and  her  future  daughter-in-law. 

Punctual  to  the  appointed  time,  Isaac  hurriedly  and 
nervously  led  his  promised  wife  into  the  room.  His 
mother  rose  to  receive  her — advanced  a  few  steps,  smil- 
ing— looked  Rebecca  full  in  the  eyes,  and  suddenly  stop- 
ped. Her  face,  which  had  been  flushed  the  moment  be- 
fore, turned  white  in  an  instant ;  her  eyes  lost  their  ex- 
pression of  softness  and  kindness,  and  assumed  a  blank 
look  of  terror ;  her  outstretched  hands  fell  to  her  sides, 
and  she  staggered  back  a  few  steps  with  a  low  cry  to  her 
son. 


134  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

"Isaac,'1  she  whispered,  clutching  him  fast  by  the  arm 
when  he  asked  alarmedly  if  she  was  taken  ill,  "  Isaac, 
does  that  woman's  face  remind  you  of  nothing:'' 

Before  he  could  answer — before  he  could  look  round 
to  where  Rebecca  stood,  astonished  and  angered  by  her 
reception,  at  the  lower  end  of  the  room,  his  mother  point- 
ed impatiently  to  her  writing-desk,  and  gave  him  the 
key. 

"  Open  it,"  she  said,  in  a  quick,  breathless  whisper. 

"  What  does  this  mean  ?  Why  am  I  treated  as  if  I 
had  no  business  here  ?  Docs  your  mother  want  to  insult 
me  ?"  asked  Rebecca,  angrily. 

"  Open  it,  and  give  me  the  paper  in  the  left-hand  draw- 
er. Quick !  quick,  for  Heaven's  sake !"  said  Mrs.  Scatch- 
ard,  shrinking  farther  back  in  terror. 

Isaac  gave  her  the  paper.  She  looked  it  over  eagerly 
for  a  moment,  then  followed  Rebecca,  who  was  now  turn- 
ing away  haughtily  to  leave  the  room,  and  caught  her  by 
the  shoulder — abruptly  raised  the  long,  loose  sleeve  of  her 
gown,  and  glanced  at  her  hand  and  arm.  Something  like 
fear  began  to  steal  over  the  angry  expression  of  Rebec- 
ca's face  as  she  shook  herself  free  from  the  old  woman's 
grasp.  "  Mad  !"  she  said  to  herself;  "  and  Isaac  never 
told  me."  With  these  few  words  she  left  the  room. 

Isaac  was  hastening  after  her  when  his  mother  turned 
and  stopped  his  farther  progress.  It  wrung  his  heart  to 
see  the  misery  and  terror  in  her  face  as  she  looked  at 
him. 

"Light  gray  eyes,"  she  said,  in  low,  mournful,  awe- 
struck tones,  pointing  toward  the  open  door ;  "  a  droop 
in  the  left  eyelid  ;  flaxen  hair,  with  a  gold-yellow  streak 
in  it ;  white  arms,  with  a  down  upon  them ;  little  lady's 
hand,  with  a  reddish  look  under  the  finger  nails — T7te 
Dream-Woman,  Isaac,  the  Dream- Woman  !" 

That  faint  cleaving  doubt  which  he  had  never  been 


THE    ijriCKX    OK    HEARTS.  135 

able  to  shako  off'  in  Rebecca  Murdoch's  presence  was 
fatally  set  at  rest  forever.  He  had  seen  her  face,  then, 
before — seven  years  before,  on  his  birthday,  in  the  bed- 
room of  the  lonely  inn. 

"Be  warned!  oh,  my  son,  be  warned!  Isaac,  Isaac, 
let  her  go,  and  do  you  stop  with  me !" 

Something  darkened  the  parlor  window  as  those  words 
were  said.  A  sudden  chill  ran  through  him,  and  he 
glanced  sidelong  at  the  shadow.  Rebecca  Murdoch  had 
come  back.  She  was  peering  in  curiously  at  them  over 
the  low  window-blind. 

"  I  have  promised  to  marry,  mother,"  he  said,  "  and 
marry  I  must." 

The  tears  came  into  his  eyes  as  he  spoke  and  dimmed 
his  sight,  but  he  could  just  discern  the  fatal  face  outside 
moving  away  again  from  the  window. 

His  mother's  head  sank  lower. 

"  Are  you  faint  ?"  he  whispered. 

"  Broken-hearted,  Isaac." 

He  stooped  down  and  kissed  her.  The  shadow,  as  he 
did  so,  returned  to  the  window,  and  the  fatal  face  peer- 
ed in  curiously  once  more. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THREE  weeks  after  that  day  Isaac  and  Rebecca  were 
man  and  wife.  All  that  was  hopelessly  dogged  and 
stubborn  in  the  man's  moral  nature  seemed  to  have 
closed  round  his  fatal  passion,  and  to  have  fixed  it  unas- 
sailably  in  his  heart, 

After  that  first  interview  in  the  cottage  parlor  no  con- 
sideration would  induce  Mrs.  Scatchard  to  see  her  son's 
wife  again,  or  even  to  talk  of  her  when  Isaac  tried  hard 
to  plead  her  cause  after  their  marriage. 


136  THE    QUEEJs*    OF    HEARTS. 

This  course  of  conduct  was  not  in  any  degree  occasion- 
ed by  a  discovery  of  the  degradation  in  which  Rebecca 
had  lived.  There  was  no  question  of  that  between  moth- 
er and  son.  There  was  no  question  of  any  thing  but  the 
fearfully-exact  resemblance  between  the  living,  breathing 
woman,  and  the  spectre-woman  of  Isaac's  dream. 

Rebecca,  on  her  side,  neither  felt  nor  expressed  the 
slightest  sorrow  at  the  estrangement  between  herself 
and  her  mother-in-law.  Isaac,  for  the  sake  of  peace,  had 
never  contradicted  her  first  idea  that  age  and  long  illness 
had  affected  Mrs.  Scatchard's  mind.  He  even  allowed 
his  wife  to  upbraid  him  for  not  having  confessed  this  to 
her  at  the  time  of  their  marriage  engagement,  rather 
than  risk  any  thing  by  hinting  at  the  truth.  The  sacri- 
fice of  his  integrity  before  his  one  all-mastering  delusion 
seemed  but  a  small  thing,  and  cost  his  conscience  but 
little  after  the  sacrifices  he  had  already  made. 

The  time  of  waking  from  this  delusion — the  cruel  and 
the  rueful  time  —  was  not  far  off.  After  some  quiet 
months  of  married  life,  as  the  summer  Avas  ending,  and 
the  year  was  getting  on  toward  the  month  of  his  birth- 
day, Isaac  found  his  wife  altering  toward  him.  She 
grew  sullen  and  contemptuous ;  she  formed  acquaint- 
ances of  the  most  dangerous  kind  in  defiance  of  his  ob- 
jections, his  entreaties,  and  his  commands ;  and,  worst 
of  all,  she  learned,  ere  long,  after  every  fresh  difference 
with  her  husband,  to  seek  the  deadly  self-oblivion  of 
drink.  Little  by  little,  after  the  first  miserable  discovery 
that  his  wife  was  keeping  company  with  drunkards,  the 
shocking  certainty  forced  itself  on  Isaac  that  she  had 
grown  to  be  a  drunkard  herself. 

He  had  been  in  a  sadly  desponding  state  for  some 
time  before  the  occurrence  of  these  domestic  calamities. 
His  mother's  health,  as  he  could  but  too  plainly  discern 
every  time  he  went  to  see  her  at  the  cottage,  was  failing 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEAKTS.  137 

fast,  and  he  upbraided  himself  in  secret  as  the  cause  of 
the  bodily  and  mental  suffering  she  endured.  When  to 
his  remorse  on  his  mother's  account  was  added  the 
shame  and  misery  occasioned  by  the  discovery  of  his 
wife's  degradation,  he  sank  under  the  double  trial — his 
face  began  to  alter  fast,  and  he  looked  what  he  was,  a 
spirit-broken  man. 

His  mother,  still  struggling  bravely  against  the  illness 
that  was  hurrying  her  to  the  grave,  was  the  first  to  no- 
tice the  sad  alteration  in  him,  and  the  first  to  hear  of  his 
last  worst  trouble  with  his  wife.  She  could  only  weep 
bitterly  on  the  day  when  he  made  his  humiliating  confes- 
sion, but  on  the  next  occasion  when  he  went  to  see  her 
she  had  taken  a  resolution  in  reference  to  his  domestic 
afflictions  which  astonished  and  even  alarmed  him.  He 
found  her  dressed  to  go  out,  and  on  asking  the  reason 
received  this  answer : 

"  I  am  not  long  for  this  world,  Isaac,"  she  said,  "  and 
I  shall  not  feel  easy  on  my  death-bed  unless  I  have  done 
my  best  to  the  last  to  make  my  son  happy.  I  mean  to 
put  my  own  fears  and  my  ovra  feelings  out  of  the  ques- 
tion, and  to  go  with  you  to  your  wife,  and  try  Avhat  I 
can  do  to  reclaim  her.  Give  me  your  arm,  Isaac,  and 
let  me  do  the  last  thing  I  can  in  this  world  to  help  my 
son  before  it  is  too  late." 

He  could  not  disobey  her,  and  they  walked  together 
slowly  toward  his  miserable  home. 

It  was  only  one  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  when  they 
reached  the  cottage  where  he  lived.  It  was  their  din- 
ner-hour, and  Rebecca  was  in  the  kitchen.  He  was  thus 
able  to  take  his  mother  quietly  into  the  parlor,  and  then 
prepare  his  wife  for  the  interview.  She  had  fortunately 
drunk  but  little  at  that  early  hour,  and  she  was  less  sul- 
len and  capricious  than  usual. 

He  returned  to  his  jnother  with  his  mind  tolerably  at> 


138  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

ease.  His  wife  soon  followed  him  into  the  parlor,  and 
the  meeting  between  her  and  Mrs.  Scatchard  passed  off 
better  than  he  had  ventured  to  anticipate,  though  he  ob- 
served with  secret  apprehension  that  his  mother,  reso- 
lutely as  she  controlled  herself  in  other  respects,  could 
not  look  his  wife  in  the  face  when  she  spoke  to  her.  It 
was  a  relief  to  him,  therefore,  when  Rebecca  began  to 
lay  the  cloth. 

She  laid  the  cloth,  brought  in  the  bread-tray,  and  cut 
a  slice  from  the  loaf  for  her  husband,  then  returned  to 
the  kitchen.  At  that  moment,  Isaac,  still  anxiously 
watching  his  mother,  was  startled  by  seeing  the  same 
ghastly  change  pass  over  her  face  which  had  altered  it 
so  awfully  on  the  morning  when  Rebecca  and  she  first 
met.  Before*  he  could  say  a  word,  she  whispered,  with 
a  look  of  horror, 

"Take  me  back — home,  home  again,  Isaac.  Come 
with  me,  and  never  go  back  again." 

He  was  afraid  to  ask  for  an  explanation  ;  he  could  only 
sign  to  her  to  be  silent,  and  help  her  quickly  to  the  door. 
As  they  passed  the  bread-tray  on  the  table  she  stopped 
and  pointed  to  it. 

"  Did  you  see  what  your  wife  cut  y.our  bread  with  ?" 
she  asked,  in  a  low  whisper. 

"  No,  mother — I  was  not  noticing — what  was  it  ?" 

"  Look !" 

He  did  look.  A  new  clasp-knife,  with  a  buck-horn 
handle,  lay  with  the  loaf  in  the  bread-tray.  He  stretch- 
ed out  his  hand  shudderingly  to  possess  himself  of  it ; 
but,  at  the  same  time,  there  was  a  noise  in  the  kitchen, 
and  his  mother  caught  at  his  arm. 

"The  knife  of  the  dream!  Isaac,  I'm  faint  with  fear. 
Take  me  away  before  she  comes  back." 

He  was  hardly  able  to  support  her.  The  visible,  tan- 
gible reality  of  the  knife  struck  him  with  a  panic,  and 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  139 

utterly  destroyed  any  faint  doubts  that  he  might  have 
entertained  up  to  this  time  in  relation  to  the  mysterious 
dream-warning  of  nearly  eight  years  before.  By  a  last 
desperate  effort,  ho  summoned  self-possession  enough  to 
help  his  mother  out  of  the  house — so  quietly  that  the 
"  Dream-woman"  (he  thought  of  her  by  that  name  now) 
did  not  hear  them  departing  from  the  kitchen. 

"Don't  go  back,  Isaac — don't  go  back!"  implored 
Mrs.  Scat  chard,  as  he  turned  to  go  away,  after  seeing 
her  safely  seated  again  in  her  own  room. 

"  I  must  get  the  knife,"  he  answered,  under  his  breath. 
His  mother  tried  to  slop  him  again,  but  he  hurried  out 
without  another  word. 

On  his  return  he  found  that  his  wife  had  discovered 
their  secret  departure  from  the  house.  She  had  been 
drinking,  and  was  in  a  fury  of  passion.  The  dinner  in 
the  kitchen  was  flung  under  the  grate;  the  cloth  was 
off  the  parlor  table.  Where  was  the  knife  ? 

Unwisely,  he  asked  for  it.  She  was  only  too  glad  of 
the  opportunity  of  irritating  him  which  the  request  af- 
forded her.  "He  wanted  the  knife,  did  he?  Could  he 
give  her  a  reason  why  ?  No !  Then  he  should  not  have 
it — not  if  he  went  down  on  his  knees  to  ask  for  it."  Far- 
ther recriminations  elicited  the  fact  that  she  had  bought 
it  a  bargain,  and  that  she  considered  it  her  own  especial 
property.  Isaac  saw  the  uselessness  of  attempting  to  get 
the  knife  by  fair  means,  and  determined  to  search  for  it, 
later  in  the  day,  in  secret.  The  search  was  unsuccessful. 
Night  came  on,  and  he  left  the  house  to  walk  about  the 
streets.  He  was  afraid  now  to  sleep  in  the  same  room 
with  her. 

Three  weeks  passed.  Still  sullenly  enraged  with  him, 
she  would  not  give  up  the  knife ;  and  still  that  fear  of 
sleeping  in  the  same  room  with  her  possessed  him.  He 
walked  about  at  night,  or  dozed  in  the  parlor,  or  sat 


140  THE  QUEEN*  OF  HEARTS. 

\vatching  by  his  mother's  bedside.  Before  the  expira- 
tion of  the  first  week  in  the  new  month  his  mother  died. 
It  wanted  then  but  ten  days  of  her  son's  birthday.  She 
had  longed  to  live  till  that  anniversary.  Isaac  was  pres- 
ent at  her  death,  and  her  last  words  in  this  world  were 
addressed  to  him : 

"Don't  go  back,  my  son,  don't  go  back !" 

He  was  obliged  to  go  back,  if  it  were  only  to  watch 
his  wife.  Exasperated  to  the  last  degree  by  his  distrust 
of  her,  she  had  revengefully  sought  to  add  a  sting  to  his 
grief,  during  the  last  days  of  his  mother's  illness,  by  de- 
claring that  she  would  assert  her  right  to  attend  the  fu- 
neral. In  spite  of  all  that  he  could  do  or  say,  she  held 
with  wicked  pertinacity  to  her  word,  and  on  the  day  ap- 
pointed for  the  burial  forced  herself — inflamed  and  shame- 
less with  drink — into  her  husband's  presence,  and  de- 
clared that  she  would  walk  in  the  funeral  procession  to 
his  mother's  grave. 

This  last  worst  outrage,  accompanied  by  all  that  was 
most  insulting  in  word  and  look,  maddened  him  for  the 
moment.  He  struck  her. 

The  instant  the  blow  was  dealt  he  repented  it.  She 
crouched  down,  silent,  in  a  corner  of  the  room,  and  eyed 
him  steadily ;  it  was  a  look  that  cooled  his  hot  blood  and 
made  him  tremble.  But  there  was  no  time  now  to  think 
of  a  means  of  making  atonement.  Nothing  remained  but 
to  risk  the  worst  till  the  funeral  was  over.  There  was 
but  one  way  of  making  sure  of  her.  He  locked  her  into 
her  bedroom. 

When  he  came  back  some  hours  after,  he  found  her 
sitting,  very  much  altered  in  look  and  bearing,  by  the 
bedside,  with  a  bundle  on  her  lap.  She  rose,  and  faced 
him  quietly,  and  spoke  with  a  strange  stillness  in  her 
voice,  a  strange  repose  in  her  eyes,  a  strange  composure 
in  her  manner. 


THE    Ql'EKX    OF    HEARTS.  141 

"  No  man  has  ever  struck  me  twice,"  she  said,  "  and 
my  husband  shall  have  no  second  opportunity.  Set  the 
door  open  and  let  me  go.  From  this  day  forth  we  see 
each  other  no  more." 

Before  he  could  answer  she  passed  him  and  left  the 
room.  He  saw  her  walk  away  up  the  street. 

Would  she  return  ? 

All  that  night  he  watched  and  waited,  but  no  footstep 
came  near  the  house.  The  next  night,  overpowered  by 
fatigue,  he  lay  down  in  bed  in  his  clothes,  with  the  door 
locked,  the  key  on  the  table,  and  the  candle  burning. 
His  slumber  was  not  disturbed.  The  third  night,  the 
fourth,  the  fifth,  the  sixth  passed,  and  nothing  happened. 
He  lay  down  on  the  seventh,  still  in  his  clothes,  still  with 
the  door  locked,  the  key  on  the  table,  and  the  candle 
burning,  but  easier  in  his  mind. 

Easier  in  his  mind,  and  in  perfect  health  of  body  when 
he  fell  off  to  sleep.  But  his  rest  was  disturbed.  He 
woke  twice  without  any  sensation  of  uneasiness.  But 
the  third  time  it  was  that  never-to-be-forgotten  shiver- 
ing of  the  night  at  the  lonely  inn,  that  dreadful  sinking 
pain  at  the  heart,  which  once  more  aroused  him  in  an  in- 
stant. 

His  eyes  opened  toward  the  left-hand  side  of  the  bed, 
and  there  stood — 

The  Dream- Woman  again  ?  No !  His  wife ;  the  liv- 
ing reality,  with  the  dream-spectre's  face,  in  the  dream- 
spectre's  attitude ;  the  fair  arm  up,  the  knife  clasped  in 
the  delicate  white  hand. 

He  sprang  upon  her  almost  at  the  instant  of  seeing 
her,  and  yet  not  quickly  enough  to  prevent  her  from 
hiding  the  knife.  Without  a  word  from  him — without 
a  cry  from  her — he  pinioned  her  in  a  chair.  With  one 
hand  he  felt  up  her  sleeve,  and  there,  where  the  Dream- 
Woman  had  hidden  the  knife,  his  wife  had  hidden  it — • 


142  THE  QUEEN'  OF  HEARTS. 

the  knife  with  the  buck-horn  handle,  that  looked  like 
new. 

In  the  despair  of  that  fearful  moment  his  brain  was 
steady,  his  heart  was  calm.  He  looked  at  her  fixedly 
with  the  knife  in  his  hand,  and  said  these  last  words : 

"You  told  me  we  should  see  each  other  no  more,  and 
you  have  come  back.  It  is  my  turn  now  to  go,  and  to 
go  forever.  I  say  that  we  shall  see  each  other  no  more, 
and  my  word  shall  not  be  broken." 

He  left  her,  and  set  forth  into  the  night.  There  was  a 
bleak  wind  abroad,  and  the  smell  of  recent  rain  was  in 
the  air.  The  distant  church-clocks  chimed  the  quarter 
as  he  walked  rapidly  beyond  the  last  houses  in  the  sub- 
urb. He  asked  the  first  policeman  he  met  what  hour 
that  was  of  which  the  quarter  past  had  just  struck. 

The  man  referred  sleepily  to  his  watch,  and  answered, 
"Two  o'clock."  Two  in  the  morning.  What  day  of 
the  month  was  this  day  that  had  just  begun  ?  He  reck- 
oned it  up  from  the  date  of  his  mother's  funeral.  The 
fatal  parallel  was  complete :  it  was  his  birthday ! 

Had  he  escaped  the  mortal  peril  which  his  dream  fore- 
told ?  or  had  he  only  received  a  second  warning  ? 

As  that  ominous  doubt  forced  itself  on  his  mind,  he 
stopped,  reflected,  and  turned  back  again  toward  the 
city.  He  was  still  resolute  to  hold  to  his  word,  and 
never  to  let  her  see  him  more ;  but  there  was  a  thought 
now  in  his  mind  of  having  her  watched  and  followed. 
The  knife  was  in  his  possession  ;  the  world  was  before 
him  ;  but  a  new  distrust  of  her — a  vague,  unspeakable, 
superstitious  dread  had  overcome  him. 

"  I  must  know  where  she  goes,  now  she  thinks  I  have 
left  her,"  he  said  to  himself,  as  he  stole  back  wearily  to 
the  precincts  of  his  house. 

It  was  still  dark.  He  had  left  the  candle  burning  in 
the  bedchamber;  but  when  he  looked  up  to  the  window 


THE    QUEEN    OP    HEARTS.  143 

of  the  room  now,  there  was  no  light  in  it.  He  crept 
cautiously  to  the  house  door.  On  going  away,  he  re- 
membered to  have  closed  it ;  on  trying  it  now,  he  found 
it  open. 

He  waited  outside,  never  losing  sight  of  the  house,  till 
daylight.  Then  he  ventured  in-doors  —  listened,  and 
heard  nothing — looked  into  kitchen,  scullery,  parlor,  and 
found  nothing ;  went  up,  at  last,  into  the  bedroom — it 
was  empty.  A  picklock  lay  on  the  floor,  betraying  how 
she  had  gained  entrance  in  the  night,  and  that  was  the 
only  trace  of  her. 

Whither  had  she  gone?  That  no  mortal  tongue  could 
tell  him.  The  darkness  had  covered  her  flight ;  and 
when  the  day  broke,  no  man  could  say  where  the  light 
found  her. 

Before  leaving  the  house  and  the  town  forever,  he 
gave  instructions  to  a  friend  and  neighbor  to  sell  his  fur- 
niture for  any  thing  that  it  would  fetch,  and  apply  the 
proceeds  to  employing  the  police  to  trace  her.  The  di- 
rections were  honestly  followed,  and  the  money  was  all 
spent,  but  the  inquiries  led  to  nothing.  The  picklock 
on  the  bedroom  floor  remained  the  one  last  useless  trace 
of  the  Dream-Woman. 

At  this  point  of  the  narrative  the  landlord  paused, 
and,  turning  toward  the  window  of  the  room  in  which 
we>  were  sitting,  looked  in  the  direction  of  the  stable- 
yard. 

"  So  far,"  he  safd-,  "  I  tell  you  what  was  told  to  me. 
The  little  that  remains  to  be  added  lies  within  my  own 
experience.  Between  two  and  three-  months  after  the 
events  I  have  just  been  relating,  Isaac  ScatchjmL  came  to 
me,  withered  and  old-looking  before  his  time,  just  as  you 
saw  him  to-day.  He  had  his  testimonials  to  character 
with  him,  and  he  asked  for  employment  here.  Knowing 


144  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

that  my  wife  and  he  were  distantly  related,  I  gave  him  a 
trial  in  consideration  of  that  relationship,  and  liked  him 
in  spite  of  his  queer  habits.  He  is  as  sober,  honest,  and 
willing  a  man  as  there  is  in  England.  As  for  his  rest- 
lessness at  night,  and  his  sleeping  away  his  leisure  time 
in  the  day,  who  can  wonder  at  it  after  hearing  his  story  ? 
Besides,  he  never  objects  to  being  roused  up  when  he's 
wanted,  so  there's  not  much  inconvenience  to  complain 
of,  after  all." 

"  I  suppose  he  is  afraid  of  a  return  of  that  dreadful 
dream,  and  of  waking  out  of  it  in  the  dark  ?"  said  I. 

"No,"  returned  the  landlord.  "The  dream  comes 
back  to  him  so  often  that  he  has  got  to  bear  with  it  by 
this  time  resignedly  enough.  It's  his  wife  keeps  him 
Avaking  at  night,  as  he  has  often  told  me." 

"  What !     Has  she  never  been  heard  of  yet  ?" 

"  Never.  Isaac  himself  has  the  one  perpetual  thought 
about  her,  that  she  is  alive  and  looking  for  him.  I  be- 
lieve he  wouldn't  let  himself  drop  off  to  sleep  toward  two 
in  the  morning  for  a  king's  ransom.  Two  in  the  morn- 
ing, he  says,  is  the  time  she  will  find  him,  one  of  these 
days.  Two  in  the  morning  is  the  time  all  the  vear  round 

•/  » 

when  he  likes  to  be  most  certain  that  he  has  got  that 
clasp-knife  safe  about  him.  He  does  not  mind  being 
alone  as  long  as  he  is  awake,  except  on  the  night  before 
his  birthday,  when  he  firmly  believes  himself  to  be  in 
peril  of  his  life.  The  birthday  has  only  come  round  once 
since  he  has  been  here,  and  then  he  sat  up  along  with  the 
night-porter.  '  She's  looking  for  me,'  is  all  he  says  when 
any  body  speaks  to  him  about  the  one  anxiety  of  his 
life ;  '  she's  looking  for  me.'  He  may  be  right.  She  may 
be  looking  for  him.  Who  can  tell?" 
"Who  caii  tell?"  said  I. 


THE  FOURTH  DAY. 

THE  sky  once  more  cloudy  and  threatening.  No  news 
of  George.  I  corrected  Morgan's  second  story  to-day ; 
numbered  it  Seven,  and  added  it  to  our  stock. 

Undeterred  by  the  weather,  Miss  Jessie  set  off  this 
morning  on  the  longest  ride  she  had  yet  undertaken. 
She  had  heard — through  one  of  my  brother's  laborers,  I 
believe — of  the  actual  existence,  in  this  nineteenth  centu- 
ry, of  no  less  a  personage  than  a  Welsh  Bard,  who  was 
to  be  found  at  a  distant  farm-house  far  beyond  the  limits 
of  Owen's  property.  The  prospect  of  discovering  this 
remarkable  relic  of  past  times  hurried  her  off,  under  the 
guidance  of  her  ragged  groom,  in  a  high  state  of  excite- 
ment, to  see  and  hear  the  venerable  man.  She  was  away 
the  whole  day,  and  for  the  first  time  since  her  visit  she 
kept  us  waiting  more  than  half  an  hour  for  dinner.  The 
moment  we  all  sat  down  to  table,  she  informed  us,  to 
Morgan's  great  delight,  that  the  bard  was  a  rank  impos- 
tor. 

-'  Why,  what  did  you  expect  to  see  ?"  I  asked. 

"A  Welsh  patriarch,  to  be  sure,  with  a  long  white 
beard,  flowing  robes,  and  a  harp  to  match,"  answered 
Miss  Jessie. 

"  And  what  did  you  find  ?" 

"  A  highly-respectable  middle-aged  rustic ;  a  smiling, 
smoothly-shaven,  obliging  man,  dressed  in  a  blue  swallow- 
tailed  coat,  with  brass  buttons,  and  exhibiting  his  bardic 
legs  in  a  pair  of  extremely  stout  and  comfortable  cordu- 
roy trowsers." 

"  But  he  sang  old  Welsh  songs,  surely  ?" 


146  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

"Sang!  I'll  tell  you  what  he  did.  He  sat  down  on 
a  Windsor  chair,  without  a  harp  ;  he  put  his  hands  in  his 
pockets,  cleared  his  throat,  looked  up  at  the  ceiling,  and 
suddenly  burst  into  a  series  of  the  shrillest  falsetto 
screeches  I  ever  heard  in  my  life.  My  own  private  opin- 
ion is  that  he  was  suffering  from  hydrophobia.  I  have 
lost  all  belief,  henceforth  and  forever,  in  bards — all  be- 
lief in  every  thing,  in  short,  except  your  very  delightful 
stories  and  this  remarkably  good  dinner." 

Ending  with  that  smart  double  fire  of  compliments  to 
her  hosts,  the  Queen  of  Hearts  honored  us  all  three  with 
a  smile  of  approval,  and  transferred  her  attention  to  her 
knife  and  fork. 

The  number  drawn  to-night  was  One.  On  examina- 
tion of  the  Purple  Volume,  it  proved  to  be  my  turn  to 
read  again. 

"  Our  story  to-night,"  I  said, "  contains  the  narrative  of 
a  very  remarkable  adventure  which  really  befell  me  when 
I  was  a  young  man.  At  the  time  of  my  life  when  these 
events  happened  I  was  dabbling  in  literature  when  I 
ought  to  have  been  studying  law,  and  traveling  on  the 
Continent  when  I  ought  to  have  been  keeping  my  terms 
at  Lincoln's  Inn.  At  the  outset  of  the  story,  you  will 
find  that  I  refer  to  the  county  in  which  I  lived  in  my 
youth,  and  to  a  neighboring  family  possessing  a  large 
estate  in  it.  That  county  is  situated  in  a  part  of  England 
far  away  from  the  Glen  Tower,  and  that  family  is  there- 
fore not  to  be  associated  with  any  present  or  former 
neighbors  of  ours  in  this  part  of  the  world." 

After  saying  these  necessary  words  of  explanation,  I 
opened  the  first  page,  and  began  the  story  of  my  Own 
Adventure.  I  observed  that  my  audience  started  a  little 
as  I  read  the  title;  which  I  must  add,  in  my  own  defense, 
had  been  almost  forced  on  my  choice  by  the  peculiar 
character  of  the  narrative.  It  was"  MAD  MONKTON." 


THE    yUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  147 


BROTHER  GKIFFITH'S  STORY 

OF 

MAD  MONKTON. 

CHAPTER  I. 

THE  Monktons  of  Wincot  Abbey  bore  a  sad  character 
for  want  of  sociability  in  our  county.  They  never  went 
to  other  people's  houses,  and,  excepting  my  father,  and  a 
lady  and  her  daughter  living  near  them,  never  received 
any  body  under  their  own  roof. 

Proud  as  they  all  certainly  were,  it  was  not  pride,  but 
dread,  which  kept  them  thus  apart  from  their  neighbors. 
The  family  had  suffered  for  generations  past  from  the 
horrible  affliction  of  hereditary  insanity,  and  the  members 
of  it  shrank  from  exposing  their  calamity  to  others,  as 
they  must  have  exposed  it  if  they  had  mingled  with  the 
busy  little  world  around  them.  There  is  a  frightful  story 
of  a  crime  committed  in  past  times  by  two  of  the  Monk- 
tons,  near  relatives,  from  which  the  first  appearance  of 
the  insanity  was  always  supposed  to  date,  but  it  is  need- 
less for  me  to  shock  any  one  by  repeating  it.  It  is 
enough  to  say  that  at  intervals  almost  every  form  of 
madness  appeared  in  the  family,  monomania  being  the 
most  frequent  manifestation  of  the  affliction  among  them. 
I  have  these  particulars,  and  one  or  two  yet  to  be  re- 
lated, from  my  father. 

At  the  period  of  my  youth  but  three  of  the  Monktons 
were  left  at  the  Abbey — Mr.  and  Mrs.  Monkton,  and 
their  only  child  Alfred,  heir  to  the  property.  The  one 


148  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

other  member  of  this,  the  elder  branch  of  the  family,  who 
was  then  alive,  Avas  Mr.  Monition's  younger  brother,  Ste- 
phen. He  was  an  unmarried  man,  possessing  a  fine 
estate  in  Scotland ;  but  he  lived  almost  entirely  on  the 
Continent,  and  bore  the  reputation  of  being  a  shameless 
profligate.  The  family  at  Wincot  held  almost  as  little 
communication  with  him  as  with  their  neighbors. 

I  have  already  mentioned  my  father,  and  a  lady  and 
her  daughter,. as  the  only  privileged  people  who  were  ad- 
mitted into  Wincot  Abbey. 

My  father  had  been  an  old  school  and  college  friend 
of  Mr.  Monkton,  and  accident  had  brought  them  so  much 
together  in  later  life  that  their  continued  intimacy  at 
Wincot  was  quite  intelligible.  I  am  not  so  well  able  to 
account  for  the  friendly  terms  on  which  Mrs.  Elmslu 
(the  lady  to  whom  I  have  alluded)  lived  with  the  Monk- 
tons.  Her  late  husband  had  been  distantly  related  to 
Mrs.  Monkton,  and  my  father  Avas  her  daughter's  guard- 
ian. But  even  these  claims  to  friendship  and  regard 
never  seemed  to  me  strong  enough  to  explain  the  inti- 
macy between  Mrs.  Elmslic  and  the  inhabitants  of  the 
Abbey.  Intimate,  however,  they  certainly  Avere,  and  one 
result  of  the  constant  interchange  of  visits  between  the 
two  families  in  due  time  declared  itself:  Mr.  Monkton's 
son  and  Mrs.  Elmslie's  daughter  became  attached  to  each 
other. 

I  had  no  opportunities  of  seeing  much  of  the  young 
lady;  I  only  remember  her  at  that  time  as  a  delicate, 
gentle,  loA^able  girl,  the  very  opposite  in  appearance, 
and  apparently  in  character  also,  to  Alfred  Monkton. 
But  perhaps  that  was  one  reason  why  they  fell  in  love 
with  each  other.  The  attachment  was  soon  discovered, 
and  was  far  from  being  disapproATed  by  the  parents  on 
either  side.  In  all  essential  points  except  that  of  wealth, 
the  Elmslies  Avere  nearly  the  equals  of  the  Monktons,  and 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  149 

want  of  money  in  a  bride  was  of  no  consequence  to  the 
heir  of  Wincot.  Alfred,  it  was  well  known,  would  suc- 
ceed to  thirty  thousand  a  year  on  his  father's  death. 

Thus,  though  the  parents  on  Loth  sides  thought  the 
young  people  not  old  enough  to  be  married  at  once,  they 
saw  no  reason  why  Ada  and  Alfred  should  not  be  en- 
gMLivd  to  each  other,  with  the  understanding  that  they 
should  be  united  when  young  Monkton  came  of  age,  in 
two  years'  time.  The  person  to  be  consulted  in  the  mat- 
ter, after  the  parents,  was  my  father,  in  his  capacity  of 
Ada's  guardian.  He  knew  that  the  family  misery  had 
shown  itself  many  years  ago  in  Mrs.  Monkton,  who  was 
her  husband's  cousin.  The  illness,  as  it  was  significantly 
called,  had  been  palliated  by  careful  treatment,  and  was 
reported  to  have  passed  away.  But  my  father  was  not 
to  be  deceived.  He  knew  where  the  hereditary  taint 
still  lurked ;  he  viewed  with  horror  the  bare  possibility 
of  its  reappearing  one  day  in  the  children  of  his  friend's 
only  daughter ;  and  he  positively  refused  his  consent  to 
the  marriage  engagement. 

The  result  was  that  the  doors  of  the  Abbey  and  the 
doors  of  Mrs.  Elmslie's  house  were  closed  to  him.  This 
suspension  of  friendly  intercourse  had  lasted  but  a  very 
short  time  when  Mrs.  Monkton  died.  Her  husband,  who 
was  fondly  attached  to  her,  caught  a  violent  cold  while 
attending  her  funeral.  The  cold  was  neglected,  and  set- 
tled on  his  lungs.  In  a  few  months'  time  he  followed 
his  wife  to  the  grave,  and  Alfred  was  left  master  of  the 
grand  old  Abbey  and  the  fair  lands  that  spread  all 
around  it. 

At  this  period  Mrs.  Elmslie  had  the  indelicacy  to  en- 
deavor a  second  time  to  procure  my  father's  consent  to 
the  marriage  engagement.  He  refused  it  again  more 
positively  than  before.  More  than  a  year  passed  away. 
The  time  was  approaching  fast  when  Alfred  would  be 

7* 


150  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

of  age.  I  returned  from  college  to  spend  the  long  vaca- 
tion at  home,  and  made  some  advances  toward  bettering 
my  acquaintance  with  young  Monkton.  They  were 
evaded — certainly  with  perfect  politeness,  but  still  in  such 
a  way  as  to  prevent  me  from  offering  my  friendship  to 
him  again.  Any  mortification  I  might  have  felt  at  this 
petty  repulse  under  ordinary  circumstances  was  dismiss- 
ed from  my  mind  by  the  occurrence  of  a  real  misfortune 
in  our  household.  For  some  months  past  my  father's 
health  had  been  failing,  and,  just  at  the  time  of  which  I 
am  now  writing,  his  sons  had  to  mourn  the  irreparable 
calamity  of  his  death. 

This  event,  through  some  informality  or  error  in  the 
late  Mr.  Elmslie's  will,  left  the  future  of  Ada's  life  entire- 
ly at  her  mother's  disposal.  The  consequence  was  the 
immediate  ratification  of  the  marriage  engagement  to 
which  my  father  had  so  steadily  refused  his  consent.  As 
soon  as  the  fact  was  publicly  announced,  some  of  Mrs. 
Elmslie's  more  intimate  friends,  who  were  acquainted 
with  the  reports  affecting  the  Monkton  family,  ventured 
to  mingle  with  their  formal  congratulations  one  or  two 
significant  references  to  the  late  Mrs.  Monkton,  and  some 
searching  inquiries  as  to  the  disposition  of  her  son. 

Mrs.  Elmslie  always  met  these  polite  hints  with  one 
bold  form  of  answer.  She  first  admitted  the  existence 
of  those  reports  about  the  Monktons  which  her  friends 
were  unwilling  to  specify  distinctly,  and  then  declared 
that  they  were  infamous  calumnies.  The  hereditary  taint 
had  died  out  of  the  family  generations  back.  Alfred  was 
the  best,  the  kindest,  the  sanest  of  human  beings.  He 
loved  study  and  retirement ;  Ada  sympathized  with  his 
tastes,  and  had  made  her  choice  unbiased ;  if  any  more 
hints  were  dropped  about  sacrificing  her  by  her  mar- 
riage, those  hints  would  be  viewed  as  so  many  insults 
to  her  mother,  whose  affection  for  her  it  was  monstrous 


T1IK    IJIJKKN    OF    HEARTS.  151 

to  call  in  question.  This  way  of  talking  silenced  people, 
but  did  not  convince  them.  They  began  to  suspect, 
what  was  indeed  the  actual  truth,  that  Mrs.  Elmslie  was 
a  selfish,  worldly,  grasping  woman,  who  wanted  to  get 
her  daughter  well  married,  and  cared  nothing  for  conse- 
quences as  long  as  she  saw  Ada  mistress  of  the  greatest 
establishment  in  the  whole  county. 

It  seemed,  however,  as  if  there  was  some  fatality  at 
work  to  prevent  the  attainment  of  Mrs.  Elmslie's  great 
object  in  life.  Hardly  was  one  obstacle  to  the  ill-omen- 
ed marriage  removed  by  my  father's  death  before  anoth- 
er succeeded  it  in  the  shape  of  anxieties  and  difficulties 
caused  by*  the  delicate  state  of  Ada's  health.  Doctors 
were  consulted  in  all  directions,  and  the  result  of  their 
advice  was  that  the  marriage  must  be  deferred,  and  that 
Miss  Elmslie  must  leave  England  for  a  certain  time,  to 
reside  in  a  warmer  climate — the  south  of  France,  if  I  re- 
member rightly.  Thus  it  happened  that  just  before  Al- 
fred came  of  age,  Ada  and  her  mother  departed  for  the 
Continent,  and  the  union  of  the  two  young  people  was 
understood  to  be  indefinitely  postponed. 

Some  curiosity  was  felt  in  the  neighborhood  as  to 
Avhat  Alfred  Monkton  would  do  under  these  circum- 
stances. Would  he  follow  his  lady-love  ?  would  he  go 
yachting  ?  would  he  throw  open  the  doors  of  the  old  Ab- 
bey at  last,  and  endeavor  to  forget  the  absence  of  Ada 
and  the  postponement  of  his  marriage  in  a  round  of  gay- 
eties  ?  He  did  none  of  these  things.  He  simply  remain- 
ed at  Wincot,  living  as  suspiciously  strange  and  solitary 
a  life  as  his  father  had  lived  before  him.  Literally,  there 
was  now  no  companion  for  him  at  the  Abbey  but  the 
old  priest — the  Monktons,  I  should  have  mentioned  be- 
fore, were  Roman  Catholics — who  had  held  the  office  of 
tutor  to  Alfred  from  his  earliest  years.  He  came  of 
age,  and  there  was  not  even  so  much  as  a  private  dinner- 


152  THE    QUKKX    <»F    HKAUTS. 

party  at  Wincot  to  celebrate  the  event.  Families  in  the 
neighborhood  determined  to  forget  the  offense  which  his 
father's  reserve  had  given  them,  and  invited  him  to  their 
houses.  The  invitations  were  politely  declined.  Civil 
visitors  called  resolutely  at  the  Abbey,  and  were  as  res- 
olutely bowed  away  from  the  doors  as  soon  as  they  had 
left  their  cards.  Under  this  combination  of  sinister  and 
aggravating  circumstances,  people  in  all  directions  took 
to  shaking  their  heads  mysteriously  Avhen  the  name  of 
Mr.  Alfred  Monkton  was  mentioned,  hinting  at  the  fam- 
ily calamity,  and  wondering  peevishly  or  sadly,  as  their 
tempers  inclined  them,  what  he  could  possibly  do  to  oc- 
cupy himself  month  after  month  in  the  lonely  old  house. 

The  right  answer  to  this  question  was  not  easy  to  find. 
It  was  quite  useless,  for  example,  to  apply  to  the  priest 
for  it.  He  was  a  very  quiet,  polite  old  gentleman  ;  his 
replies  were  always  excessively  ready  and  civil,  and  ap- 
peared at  the  time  to  convey  an  immense  quantity  of  in- 
formation ;  but  when  they  came  to  be  reflected  on,  it  was 
universally  observed  that  nothing  tangible  could  ever  be 
got  out  of  them.  The  housekeeper,  a  weird  old  woman, 
with  a  very  abrupt  and  repelling  manner,  was  too  fierce 
and  taciturn  to  be  safely  approached.  The  few  in-door 
servants  had  all  been  long  enough  in  the  family  to  have 
learned  to  hold  their  tongues  in  public  as  a  regular  hab- 
it. It  was  only  from  the  farm-servants  who  supplied  the 
table  at  the  Abbey  that  any  information  could  be  obtain- 
ed, and  vague  enough  it  was  when  they  came  to  commu- 
nicate it. 

Some  of  them  had  observed  the  "young  master"  walk- 
ing about  the  library  with  heaps  of  dusty  papers  in  his 
hands.  Others  had  heard  odd  noises  in  the  uninhabited 
parts  of  the  Abbey,  had  looked  up,  and  had  seen  him 
forcing  open  the  old  windows,  as  if  to  let  light  and  air 
into  rooms  supposed  to  have  been  shut  close  for  years 


THE    QVEEX    OF    HEARTS.  153 

and  years,  or  had  discovered  him  standing  on  the  peril- 
ous summit  of  one  of  the  crumbling  turrets,  never  as- 
cended before  within  their  memories,  and  popularly  con- 
sidered to  be  inhabited  by  the  ghosts  of  the  monks  who 
had  once  possessed  the  building.  The  result  of  these 
observations  and  discoveries,  when  they  were  communi- 
cated to  others,  was  of  course  to  impress  every  one  with 
a  firm  belief  that  "  poor  young  Monkton  was  going  the 
way  that  the  rest  of  the  family  had  gone  before  him," 
which  opinion  always  appeared  to  be  immensely  strength- 
ened in  the  popular  mind  by  a  conviction — founded  on 
no  particle  of  evidence — that  the  priest  was  at  the  bot- 
tom of  all  the  mischief. 

Thus  far  I  have  spoken  from  hearsay  evidence  mostly. 
What  I  have  next  to  tell  will  be  the  result  of  my  own 
personal  experience. 


CHAPTER  II. 

ABOUT  five  months  after  Alfred  Monkton  came  of  age 
I  left  college,  and  resolved  to  amuse  and  instruct  myself 
a  little  by  traveling  abroad. 

At  the  time  when  I  quitted  England  young  Monkton 
was  still  leading  his  secluded  life  at  the  Abbey,  and  was, 
in  the  opinion  of  every  body,  sinking  rapidly,  if  he  had 
not  already  succumbed,  under  the  hereditary  curse  of  his 
family.  As  to  the  Elmslies,  report  said  that  Ada  had 
benefited  by  her  sojourn  abroad,  and  that  mother  and 
daughter  were,  on  their  way  back  to  England  to  resume 
their  old  relations  with  the  heir  of  Wincot.  Before  they 
returned  I  was  away  on  my  travels,  and  wandered  half 
over  Europe,  hardly  ever  planning  whither  I  should 
shape  my  course  beforehand.  Chance,  which  thus  led 
me  every  where,  led  me  at  last  to  Naples.  There  I  met 


Io4  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

with  an  old  school  friend,  who  was  one  of  the  attache* 
at  the  English  embassy,  and  there  began  the  extraordi- 
nary events  in  connection  with  Alfred  Monkton  which 
form  the  main  interest  of  the  story  I  am  now  relating. 

I  was  idling  away  the  time  one  morning  with  my 
friend  the  attache  in  the  garden  of  the  Villa  Reale,  when 
we  were  passed  by  a  young  man,  walking  alone,  who  ex- 
changed bows  with  my  friend. 

I  thought  I  recognized  the  dark,  eager  eyes,  the  color- 
less cheeks,  the  strangely-vigilant,  anxious  expression 
which  I  remembered  in  past  times  as  characteristic  of 
Alfred  Monkton's  face,  and  was  about  to  question  my 
friend  on  the  subject,  when  he  gave  me  unasked  the  in- 
formation of  which  I  was  in  search. 

"  That  is  Alfred  Monkton,"  said  he ;  "  he  comes  from 
your  part  of  England.     You  ought  to  know  him." 
^"1  do  know  a  little  of  him,"  I  answered;  "he  was 
engaged  to  Miss  Elmslie  when  I  was  last  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  Wincot.     Is  he  married  to  her  yet  ?" 

"  No,  and  he  never  ought  to  be.  He  has  gone  the 
way  of  the  rest  of  the  family — or,  in  plainer  words,  lie 
has  gone  mad." 

"  Mad !  But  I  ought  not  to  be  surprised  at  hearing 
that,  after  the  reports  about  him  in  England." 

"  I  speak  from  no  reports ;  I  speak  from  Avhat  he  has 
said  and  done  before  me,  and  before  hundreds  of  other 
people.  Surely  you  must  have  heard  of  it?" 

"Never.  I  have  been  out  of  the  way  of  news  from 
Naples  or  England  for  months  past." 

"Then  I  have  a  very  extraordinary  story  to  tell  you. 
You  know,  of  course,  that  Alfred  had  an  uncle,  Stephen 
Monkton.  Well,  some  time  ago  this  uncle  fought  a  duel 
in  the  Roman  States  with  a  Frenchman,  who  shot  him 
dead.  The  seconds  and  the  Frenchman  (who  was  un- 
hurt) took  to  flight  in  different  directions,  as  it  is  sup- 


THE    C^l  KKX    OF    HEARTS.  155 

posed.  We  heard  nothing  here  of  the  details  of  the 
duel  till  a  month  after  it  happened,  when  one  of  the 
French  journals  published  an  account  of  it,  taken  from 
the  papers  left  by  Monkton's  second,  who  died  at  Paris 
of  consumption.  These  papers  stated  the  manner  in 
which  the  duel  was  fought,  and  how  it  terminated,  but 
nothing  more.  The  surviving  second  and  the  French- 
man have  never  been  traced  from  that  time  to  this.  All 
that  any  body  knows,  therefore,  of  the  duel  is  that  Ste- 
phen Monkton  was  shot ;  an  event  which  nobody  can  re- 
gret, for  a  greater  scoundrel  never  existed.  The  exact 
place  where  he  died,  and  what  was  done  with  the  body 
are  still  mysteries  not  to  be  penetrated." 
"  But  what  has  all  this  to  do  with  Alfred  ?" 
"  Wait  a  moment,  and  you  will  hear.  Soon  after  the 
news  of  his  uncle's  death  reached  England,  what  do  you 
think  Alfred  did  ?  He  actually  put  off  his  marriage 
with  Miss  Elmslie,  which  was  then  about  to  be  cele- 
brated, to  come  out  here  in  search  of  the  burial-place  of 
his  wretched  scamp  of  an  uncle ;  and  no  power  on  earth 
will  now  induce  him  to  return  to  England  and  to  Miss 
Elmslie  until  he  has  found  the  body,  and  can  take  it  back 
with  him,  to  be  buried  with  all  the  other  dead  Monktons 
in  the  vault  under  Wincot  Abbey  Chapel.  He  has  squan- 
dered his  money,  pestered  the  police,  and  exposed  him- 
self to  the  ridicule  of  the  men  and  the  indignation  of  the 
women  for  the  last  three  months  in  trying  to  achieve  his 
insane  purpose,  and  is  now  as  far  from  it  as  ever.  He 
will  not  assign  to  any  body  the  smallest  motive  for  his 
conduct.  You  can't  laugh  him  out  of  it  or  reason  him 
out  of  it.  When  we  met  him  just  now,  I  happen  to 
know  that  he  was  on  his  way  to  the  office  of  the  police 
minister,  to  send  out  fresh  agents  to  search  and  inquire 
through  the  Roman  States  for  the  place  where  his  uncle 
was  shot.  And,  mind,  all  this  time  he  professes  to  be 


156  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

passionately  in  love  with  Miss  Elmslie,  and  to  be  miser- 
able at  his  separation  from  her.  Just  think  of  that ! 
And  then  think  of  his  self-imposed  absence  from  her 
here,  to  hunt  after  the  remains  of  a  wretch  who  was  a 
disgrace  to  the  family,  and  whom  he  never  saw  but  once 
or  twice  in  his  life.  Of  all  the  '  Mad  Monktons,'  as  they 
used  to  call  them  in  England,  Alfred  is  the  maddest.  He 
is  actually  our  principal  excitement  in  this  dull  opera 
season  ;  though,  for  my  own  part,  when  I  think  of  the 
poor  girl  in  England,  I  am  a  great  deal  more  ready  to 
despise  him  than  to  laugh  at  him." 

"  You  know  the  Elmslies  then  ?" 

"Intimately.  The  other  day  my  mother  wrote  to  me 
from  England,  after  having  seen  Ada.  This  escapade  of 
Monkton's  has  outraged  all  her  friends.  They  have  been 
entreating  her  to  break  off  the  match,  which  it  seems  she 
could  do  if  she  liked.  Even  her  mother,  sordid  and  self- 
ish as  she  is,  has  been  obliged  at  last,  in  common  decen- 
cy, to  side  with  the  rest  of  the  family ;  but  the  good, 
faithful  girl  won't  give  Monkton  up.  She  humors  his 
insanity ;  declares  he  gave  her  a  good  reason  in  secret 
for  going  away  ;  says  she  could  always  make  him  happy 
when  they  were  together  in  the  old  Abbey,  and  can 
make  him  still  happier  when  they  are  married;  in  short, 
she  loves  him  dearly,  and  will  therefore  believe  in  him 
to  the  last.  Nothing  shakes  her.  She  has  made  up  her 
mind  to  throw  away  her  life  on  him,  and  she  will  do  it." 

"  I  hope  not.  Mad  as  his  conduct  looks  to  us,  he  may 
have  some  sensible  reason  for  it  that  we  can  not  imagine. 
Does  his  mind  seem  at  all  disordered  when  he  talks  on 
ordinary  topics  ?" 

"  Not  in  the  least.  When  you  can  get  him  to  say  any 
thing,  which  is  not  often,  lie  talks  like  a  sensible,  well- 
educated  man.  Keep  silence  about  his  precious  errand 
here,  and  you  wrould  fancy  him  the  gentlest  and  most 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  157 

temperate  of  human  beings ;  but  touch  the  subject  of  his 
vagabond  of  an  uncle,  and  the  Monkton  madness  comes 

O 

out  directly.  The  other  night  a  lady  asked  him,  jesting- 
ly of  course,  whether  he  had  ever  seen  his  uncle's  ghost. 
He  scowled  at  her  like  a  perfect  fiend,  and  said  that  he 
and  his  uncle  would  answer  her  question  together  some 
day,  if  they  came  from  hell  to  do  it.  We  laughed  at  his 
words,  but  the  lady  fainted  at  his  looks,  and  we  had  a 
scene  of  hysterics  and  hartshorn  in  consequence.  Any 
other  man  would  have  been  kicked  out  of  the  room  for 
nearly  frightening  a  pretty  woman  to  death  in  that  way  ; 
but  '  Mad  Monkton,'  as  we  have  christened  him,  is  a 
privileged  lunatic  in  Neapolitan  society,  because  he  is 
English,  good-looking,  and  worth  thirty  thousand  a  year. 
He  goes  out  every  where  under  the  impression  that  he 
may  meet  with  somebody  who  has  been  let  into  the  se- 
cret of  the  place  where  the  mysterious  duel  was  fought. 
If  you  are  introduced  to  him  he  is  sure  to  ask  you  wheth- 
er you  know  any  thing  about  it ;  but  beware  of  follow- 
ing up  the  subject  after  you  have  answered  him,  unless 
you  want  to  make  sure  that  he  is  out  of  his  senses.  In 
that  case,  only  talk  of  his  uncle,  and  the  result  will  rather 
more  than  satisfy  you." 

A  day  or  two  after  this  conversation  with  my  friend 
the  attache,  I  met  Monkton  at  an  evening  party. 

The  moment  he  heard  my  name  mentioned,  his  face 
flushed  up  ;  he  drew  me  away  into  a  corner,  and  referring 
to  his  cool  reception  of  my  advance  years  ago  toward 
making  his  acquaintance,  asked  my  pardon  for  what  he 
termed  his  inexcusable  ingratitude  with  an  earnestness 
and  an  agitation  which  utterly  astonished  me.  His  next 
proceeding  was  to  question  me,  as  my  friend  had  said  he 
would,  about  the  place  of  the  mysterious  duel. 

An  extraordinary  change  came  over  him  while  he  in- 
terrogated me  on  this  point,  Instead  of  looking  into  my 


158  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

face  as  they  had  looked  hitherto,  his  eyes  wandered  away, 
and  fixed  themselves  intensely,  almost  fiercely,  either  on 
the  perfectly  empty  wall  at  our  side,  or  on  the  vacant 
space  between  the  wall  and  ourselves,  it  was  impossible 
to  say  which.  I  had  come  to  Naples  from  Spain  by  sea, 
and  briefly  told  him  so,  as  the  best  way  of  satisfying  him 
that  I  could  not  assist  his  inquiries.  He  pursued  them 
no  farther ;  and,  mindful  of  my  friend's  warning,  I  took 
care  to  lead  the  conversation  to  general  topics.  He 
looked  back  at  me  directly,  and,  as  long  as  we  stood  in 
our  corner,  his  eyes  never  wandered  away  again  to  the 
empty  wall  or  the  vacant  space  at  our  side. 

Though  more  ready  to  listen  than  to  speak,  his  con- 
versation, when  he  did  talk,  had  no  trace  of  any  thing  the 
least  like  insanity  about  it.  He  had  evidently  read,  not 
generally  only,  but  deeply  as  well,  and  could  apply  his 
reading  with  singular  felicity  to  the  illustration  of  almost 
any  subject  under  discussion,  neither  obtruding  his  knowl- 
edge absurdly,  nor  concealing  it  affectedly.  His  man- 
ner was  in  itself  a  standing  protest  against  such  a  nick- 
name as  "Mad  Monkton."  He  was  so  shy,  so  quiet,  so 
composed  and  gentle  in  all  his  actions,  that  at  times  I 
should  have  been  almost  inclined  to  call  him  effeminate. 
We  had  a  long  talk  together  on  the  first  evening  of  our 
meeting ;  we  often  saw  each  other  afterward,  and  never 
lost  a  single  opportunity  of  bettering  our  acquaintance. 
I  felt  that  he  had  taken  a  liking  to  me,  and,  in  spite  of 
what  I  had  heard  about  his  behavior  to  Miss  Elmslie,  in 
spite  of  the  suspicions  which  the  history  of  his  family 
and  his  own  conduct  had  arrayed  against  him,  I  began 
to  like  "Mad  Monkton"  as  much  as  he  liked  me.  We 
took  many  a  quiet  ride  together  in  the  country,  and  sail- 
ed often  along  the  shores  of  the  Bay  on  either  side.  But 
for  two  eccentricities  in  his  conduct  which  I  could  not 
at  all  understand,  I  should  soon  have  felt  as  much  at 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  159 

my  ease  in  his  society  as  if  he  had  been  my  own  broth- 
er. 

The  first  of  these  eccentricities  consisted  in  the  reap- 
pearance on  several  occasions  of  the  odd  expression  in 
his  eyes  which  I  had  first  seen  when  he  asked  me  wheth- 
er I  knew  any  thing  about  the  duel.  No  matter  what 
we  were  talking  about,  or  where  we  happened  to  be, 
there  were  times  when  he  would  suddenly  look  away 
from  my  face,  now  on  one  side  of  me,  now  on  the  other, 
but  always  where  there  was  nothing  to  see,  and  always 
with  the  same  intensity  and  fierceness  in  his  eyes.  This 
looked  so  like  madness — or  hypochondria  at  the  least — 
that  I  felt  afraid  to  ask  him  about  it,  and  always  pre- 
tended not  to  observe  him. 

The  second  peculiarity  in  his  conduct  was  that  he  nev- 
er referred,  while  in  my  company,  to  the  reports  about 
his  errand  at  Xaples,  and  never  once  spoke  of  Miss  Elms- 
lie,  or  of  his  life  at  Win  cot  Abbey.  This  not  only  aston 
ished  me,  but  amazed  those  who  had  noticed  our  intima- 
cy, and  who  had  made  sure  that  I  mast  be  the  depos- 
itary of  all  his  secrets.  But  the  time  was  near  at  hand 
when  this  mystery,  and  some  other  mysteries  of  which  I 
had  no  suspicion  at  that  period,  were  all  to  be  revealed. 

I  met  him  one  night  at  a  large  ball,  given  by  a  Rus- 
sian nobleman,  whose  name  I  could  not  pronounce  then, 
and  can  not  remember  now.  I  had  wandered  away  from 
reception-room,  ball-room,  and  card -room,  to  a  small 
apartment  at  one  extremity  of  the  palace,  which  was 
half  conservatory,  half  boudoir,  and  which  had  been 
prettily  illuminated  for  the  occasion  with  Chinese  lan- 
terns. Nobody  was  in  the  room  when  I  got  there.  The 
view  over  the  Mediterranean,  bathed  in  the  bright  soft- 
ness of  Italian  moonlight,  was  so  lovely  that  I  remained 
for  a  long  time  at  the  window,  looking  out,  and  listening 
to  the  dance-music  which  faintly  reached  me  from  the 


160  THE    Qt  KKX    OF    HEARTS. 

ball-room.  My  thoughts  were  far  away  with  the  rela- 
tions I  had  left  in  England,  when  I  was  startled  out  of 
them  by  hearing  my  name  softly  pronounced. 

I  looked  round  directly,  and  saw  Monkton  standing  in 
the  room.  A  livid  paleness  overspread  his  face,  and  his 
eyes  were  turned  away  from  me  Avith  the  same  extraor- 
dinary expression  in  them  to  which  I  have  already  al- 
luded. 

''Do  you  mind  leaving  the  ball  early  to-night?"  he 
asked,  still  not  looking  at  me. 

"  Not  at  all,"  said  I.  "  Can  I  do  any  thing  for  you  ? 
Are  you  ill?" 

"  No — at  least  nothing  to  speak  of.  Will  you  come  to 
my  rooms?" 

"  At  once,  if  you  like." 

"  No,  not  at  once.  I  must  go  home  directly ;  but 
don't  you  come  to  me  for  half  an  hour  yet.  You  have 
not  been  at  my  rooms  before,  I  know,  but  you  will  easily 
find  them  out ;  they  are  close  by.  There  is  a  card  with 
my  address.  I  must  speak  to  you  to-night ;  my  life  de- 
pends on  it.  Pray  come !  for  God's  sake  come  when  the 
half  hour  is  up  !" 

I  promised  to  be  punctual,  and  he  left  me  directly. 

Most  people  will  be  easily  able  to  imagine  the  state  of 
nervous  impatience  and  vague  expectation  in  which  I 
passed  the  allotted  period  of  delay,  after  hearing  such 
words  as  those  Monkton  had  spoken  to  me.  Before  the 
half  hour  had  quite  expired  I  began  to  make  my  way  out 
through  the  ball-room. 

At  the  head  of  the  staircase  my  friend  the  attaclic 
met  me. 

"  What !  going  away  already  ?"  said  he. 

"Yes;  and  on  a  very  curious  expedition.  I  am  going 
to  Monkton's  rooms,  by  his  own  invitation." 

"  You  don't  mean  it !     Upon  my  honor,  you're  a  bold 


THE    QUEEX    OF  HEARTS.  161 

fellow  to  trust  yourself  alone  with  'Mad  Monkton'  when 
the  moon  is  at  the  full." 

"  He  is  ill,  poor  fellow.  Besides,  I  don't  think  him  half 
as  mad  as  you  do." 

"  We  won't  dispute  about  that ;  hut  mark  my  words, 
he  has  not  asked  you  to  go  where  no  visitor  lias  ever 
been  admitted  before  without  a  special  purpose.  I  pre- 
dict that  you  will  see  or  hear  something  to-night  which 
you  will  remember  for  the  rest  of  your  life." 

We  parted.  When  I  knocked  at  the  court-yard  gate 
of  the  house  where  Monkton  lived,  my  friend's  last  words 
on  the  palace  staircase  recurred  to  me,  and,  though  I  had 
laughed  at  him  when  he  spoke  them,  I  began  to  suspect 
even  then  that  his  prediction  would  be  fulfilled. 


CHAPTER  HI. 

THE  porter  who  let  me  into  the  house  where  Monkton 
lived  directed  me  to  the  floor  on  which  his  rooms  Avere 
situated.  On  getting  up  stairs,  I  found  his  door  on  the 
landing  ajar.  He  heard  my  footsteps,  I  suppose,  for  he- 
called  to  me  to  come  in  before  I  could  knock. 

I  entered,  and  found  him  sitting  by  the  table,  with 
some  loose  letters  in  his  hand,  which  he  was  just  tying 
together  into  a  packet.  I  noticed,  as  he  asked  me  to  sit 
down,  that  his  expression  looked  more  composed,  though 
the  paleness  had  not  yet  left  his  face.  He  thanked  me 
for  coming ;  repeated  that  he  had  something  very  im- 
portant to  say  to  me ;  and  then  stopped  short,  apparent- 
ly too  much  embarrassed  to  proceed.  I  tried  to  set  him 
at  his  ease  by  assuring  him  that,  if  my  assistance  or  ad- 
vice could  be  of  any  use,  I  was  ready  to  place  myself  and 
my  time  heartily  and  unreservedly  at  his  service. 

As  I  said  this  I  saw  his  eyes  beginning  to  wander 


162  THE    ijl'EEX    OK    HEARTS. 

away  from  my  face — to  wander  slowly,  inch  by  inch,  as 
it  were,  until  they  stopped  at  a  certain  point,  with  the 
same  fixed  stare  into  vacancy  which  had  so  often  startled 
me  on  former  occasions.  The  whole  expression  of  his 
face  altered  as  I  had  never  yet  seen  it  alter ;  he  sat  be- 
fore me  looking  like  a  man  in  a  death-trance. 

"You  are  very  kind,"  he  said,  slowly  and  faintly, 
speaking,  not  to  me,  but  in  the  direction  in  which  his 
eyes  were  still  fixed.  "  I  know  you  can  help  me ;  but — 

He  stopped ;  his  face  whitened  horribly,  and  the  per- 
spiration broke  out  all  over  it.  He  tried  to  continue — 
said  a  word  or  two — then  stopped  again.  Seriously 
alarmed  about  him,  I  rose  from  my  chair  with  the  inten- 
tion of  getting  him  some  water  from  a  jug  which  I  saw 
standing  on  a  side-table. 

He  sprang  up  at  the  same  moment.  All  the  sus- 
picions I  had  ever  heard  whispered  against  his  sanity 
flashed  over  my  mind  in  an  instant,  and  I  involuntarily 
stepped  back  a  pace  or  two. 

"Stop,"  he  said,  seating  himself  again;  "don't  mind 
me ;  and  don't  leave  your  chair.  I  want — I  wish,  if 
you  please,  to  make  a  little  alteration,  before  we  say  any 
thing  more.  Do  you  mind  sitting  in  a  strong  light  ?" 

"Not  in  the  least." 

I  had  hitherto  been  seated  in  the  shade  of  his  reading- 
lamp,  the  only  light  in  the  room. 

As  I  answered  him  lie  rose  again,  and,  going  into  an- 
other apartment,  returned  with  a  large  lamp  in  his  hand  ; 
then  took  two  candles  from  the  side-table,  and  two  others 
from  the  chimney-piece ;  placed  them  all,  to  my  amaze- 
ment, together,  so  as  to  stand  exact!}'  between  us,  and 
then  tried  to  light  them.  His  hand  trembled  so  that  he 
was  obliged  to  give  up  the  attempt,  and  allow  me  to 
come  to  his  assistance.  By  his  direction,  I  took  the 
shade  off  the  reading-lamp  after  I  had  lit  the  other  lamp 


THE    QUEEN    OP    HEARTS.  163 

and  the  four  candles.  When  we  sat  down  again,  with 
this  concentration  of  light  between  us,  his  better  and 
gentler  manner  began  to  return,  and  while  he  now  ad- 
dressed me  he  spoke  without  the  slightest  hesitation. 

"  It  is  useless  to  ask  whether  you  have  heard  the  re- 
ports about  me,"  he  said  ;  "  I  know  that  you  have.  My 
purpose  to-night  is  to  give  you  some  reasonable  explana- 
tion of  the  conduct  which  has  produced  those  reports. 
My  secret  has  been  hitherto  confided  to  one  person  only  ; 
I  am  now  about  to  trust  it  to  your  keeping,  with  a  special 
object  which  will  appear  as  I  go  on.  First,  however,  I 
must  begin  by  telling  you  exactly  what  the  great  diffi- 
culty is  which  obliges  me  to  be  still  absent  from  En- 
gland, I  want  your  advice  and  your  help  ;  and,  to  conceal 
nothing  from  you,  I  want  also  to  test  your  forbearance 
and  your  friendly  sympathy,  before  I  can  venture  on 
thrusting  my  miserable  secret  into  your  keeping.  Will 
you  pardon  this  apparent  distrust  of  your  frank  and  open 
character — this  apparent  ingratitude  for  your  kindness 
toward  me  ever  since  we  first  met?" 

I  begged  him  not  to  speak  of  these  things,  but  to  go  on. 

"  You  know,"  he  proceeded,  "  that  I  am  here  to  recov- 
er the  body  of  my  Uncle  Stephen,  and  to  carry  it  back 
with  me  to  our  family  burial-place  in  England,  and  you 
must  also  be  aware  that  I  have  not  yet  succeeded  in  dis- 
covering his  remains.  Try  to  pass  over,  for  the  present, 
whatever  may  seem  extraordinary  and  incomprehensible 
in  such  a  purpose  as  mine  is,  and  read  this  newspaper 
article  where  the  ink-line  is  traced.  It  is  the  only  evi- 
dence hitherto  obtained  on  the  subject  of  the  fatal  duel 
in  which  my  uncle  fell,  and  I  want  to  hear  what  course 
of  proceeding  the  perusal  of  it  may  suggest  to  you  as 
likely  to  be  best  on  my  part." 

He  handed  me  an  old  French  newspaper.  The  sub- 
stance of  what  I  read  there  is  still  so  firmly  impressed 


104  THE    QVKKX    OP    HEARTS. 

on  my  memory  that  I  am  certain  of  being  able  to  repeat 
correctly  at  this  distance  of  time  all  the  facts  which  it  is 
necessary  for  me  to  communicate  to  the  reader. 

The  article  began,  I  remember,  with  editorial  remarks 
on  the  great  curiosity  then  felt  in  regard  to  the  fatal 
duel  between  the  Count  St.  Lo  and  Mr.  Stephen  Monk- 
ton,  an  English  gentleman.  The  writer  proceeded  to 
dwell  at  great  length  on  the  extraordinary  secrecy  in 
which  the  whole  affair  had  been  involved  from  first  to 
last,  and  to  express  a  hope  that  the  publication  of  a  cer- 
tain manuscript,  to  which  his  introductory  observations 
referred,  might  lead  to  the  production  of  fresh  evidence 
from  other  and  better-informed  quarters.  The  manu- 
script had  been  found  'among  the  papers  of  Monsieur 
Foulon,  Mr.  Monkton's  second,  who  had  died  at  Paris 
of  a  rapid  decline  shortly  after  returning  to  his  home  in 
that  city  from  the  scene  of  the  duel.  The  document  was 
unfinished,  having  been  left  incomplete  at  the  very  place 
where  the  reader  would  most  wish  to  find  it  continued. 
No  reason  could  be  discovered  for  this,  and  no  second 
manuscript  bearing  on  the  all-important  subject  had  been 
found,  after  the  strictest  search  among  the  papers  left  by 
the  deceased. 

The  document  itself  then  followed. 

It  purported  to  be  an  agreement  privately  drawn  up 
between  Mr.  Monkton's  second,  Monsieur  Foulon,  and 
the  Count  St.  Lo's  second,  Monsieur  Dalville,  and  con- 
tained a  statement  of  all  the  arrangements  for  conduct- 
ing the  duel.  The  paper  was  dated  "  Naples,  February 
22d,"  and  was  divided  into  some  seven  or  eight  clauses. 

The  first  clause  described  the  origin  and  nature  of  the 
quarrel — a  very  disgraceful  affair  on  both  sides,  worth 
neither  remembering  nor  repeating.  The  second  clause 
stated  that,  the  challenged  man  having  chosen  the  pistol 
as  his  weapon,  and  the  challenger  (an  excellent  swords- 


THK    QUKKX    OF    HEARTS.  l6o 

man)  having,  on  his  side,  thereupon  insisted  that  the  duel 
should  be  fought  in  such  a  manner  as  to  make  the  first 
fire  decisive  in  its  results,  the  seconds,  seeing  that  fatal 
consequences  must  inevitably  follow  the  hostile  meeting, 
determined,  first  of  all,  that  the  duel  should  be  kept  a 
profound  secret  from  every  body,  and  that  the  place 
where  it  was  to  be  fought  should  not  be  made  known 
beforehand,  even  to  the  principals  themselves.  It  was 
added  that  this  excess  of  precaution  had  been  rendered 
absolutely  necessary  in  consequence  of  a  recent  address 
from  the  Pope  to  the  ruling  powers  in  Italy  commenting 
on  the  scandalous  frequency  of  the  practice  of  dueling, 
and  urgently  desiring  that  the  laws  against  duelists 
should  be  enforced  for  the  future  with  the  utmost  rigor. 

The  third  clause  detailed  the  manner  in  which  it  had 
been  arranged  that  the  duel  should  be  fought. 

The  pistols  having  been  loaded  by  the  seconds  on  the 
ground,  the  combatants  were  to  be  placed  thirty  paces 
apart,  and  were  to  toss  up  for  the  first  fire.  The  man 
who  won  was  to  advance  ten  paces — marked  out  for  him 
beforehand — and  was  then  to  discharge  his  pistol.  If 
he  missed,  or  failed  to  disable  his  opponent,  the  latter 
was  free  to  advance,  if  he  chose,  the  whole  remaining 
twenty  paces  before  he  fired  in  his  turn.  This  arrange- 
ment insured  the  decisive  termination  of  the  duel  at  the 
first  discharge  of  the  pistols,  and  both  principals  and 
seconds  pledged  themselves  on  either  side  to  abide  by  it. 

The  fourth  clause  stated  that  the  seconds  had  agreed 
that  the  duel  should  be  fought  out  of  the  Neapolitan 
States,  but  left  themselves  to  be  guided  by  circumstances 
as  to  the  exact  locality  in  which  it  should  take  place. 
The  remaining  clauses,  so  far  as  I  remember  them,  were 
devoted  to  detailing  the  different  precautions  to  be 
adopted  for  avoiding  discovery.  The  duelists  and  their 
seconds  were  to  leave  Naples  in  separate  parties ;  were 

8 


166  THE   QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

to  change  carriages  several  times;  were  to  meet  at  a 
certain  town,  or,  failing  that,  at  a  certain  post-house  on 
the  high  road  from  Naples  to  Rome ;  were  to  carry 
drawing-books,  color-boxes,  and  camp-stools,  as  if  they 
had  been  artists  out  on  a  sketching-tour ;  and  were  to 
proceed  to  the  place  of  the  duel  on  foot,  employing  no 
guides,  for  fear  of  treachery.  Such  general  arrangements 
as  these,  and  others  for  facilitating  the  flight  of  the  sur- 
vivors after  the  affair  was  over,  formed  the  conclusion  of 
this  extraordinary  document,  which  was  signed,  in  initials 
only,  by  both  the  seconds. 

Just  below  the  initials  appeared  the  beginning  of  a  nar- 
rative, dated  "  Paris,"  and  evidently  intended  to  describe 
the  duel  itself  with  extreme  minuteness.  The  hand- 
writing was  that  of  the  deceased  second. 

Monsieur  Foulon,  the  gentleman  in  question,  stated 
his  belief  that  circumstances  might  transpire  which  would 
render  an  account  by  an  eye-witness  of  the  hostile  meet- 
ing between  St.  Lo  and  Mr.  Monkton  an  important  docu- 
ment. He  proposed,  therefore,  as  one  of  the  seconds,  to 
testify  that  the  duel  had  been  fought  in  exact  accordance 
with  the  terms  of  the  agreement,  both  the  principals  con- 
ducting themselves  like  men  of  gallantry  and  honor  (!). 
And  he  farther  announced  that,  in  order  not  to  compro- 
mise any  one,  he  should  place  the  paper  containing  his 
testimony  in  safe  hands,  with  strict  directions  that  it  was 
on  no  account  to  be  opened  except  in  a  case  of  the  last 
emergency. 

After  this  preamble,  Monsieur  Foulon  related  that  the 
duel  had  been  fought  two  days  after  the  drawing  up  of 
the  agreement,  in  a  locality  to  which  accident  had  con- 
ducted the  dueling  party.  (The  name  of  the  place  was 
not  mentioned,  nor  even  the  neighborhood  in  which  it 
was  situated.)  The  men  having  been  placed  according 
to  previous  arrangement,  the  Count  St.  Lo  had  won  the 


THE    QUEEN    OP    HEARTS.  167 

toss  for  the  first  fire,  had  advanced  his  ten  paces,  and 
had  shot  his  opponent  in  the  body.  Mr.  Monkton  did 
not  immediately  fall,  but  staggered  forward  some  six 
or  seven  paces,  discharged  his  pistol  ineffectually  at  the 
count,  and  dropped  to  the  ground  a  dead  man.  Mon- 
sieur Foulon  then  stated  that  he  tore  a  leaf  from  his 
pocket-book,  wrote  on  it  a  brief  description  of  the  man- 
ner in  which  Mr.  Monkton  had  died,  and  pinned  the  pa- 
per to  his  clothes ;  this  proceeding  having  been  rendered 
necessary  by  the  peculiar  nature  of  the  plan  organized 
on  the  spot  for  safely  disposing  of  the  dead  body.  What 
this  plan  was,  or  what  was  done  with  the  corpse,  did  not 
appear,  for  at  this  important  point  the  narrative  abruptly 
broke  off. 

A  foot-note  in  the  newspaper  merely  stated  the  man- 
ner in  which  the  document  had  been  obtained  for  publi- 
cation, and  repeated  the  announcement  contained  in  the 
editor's  introductory  remarks,  that  no  continuation  had 
been  found  by  the  persons  intrusted  with  the  care  of 
Monsieur  Foulon's  papers.  I  have  now  given  the  whole 
substance  of  what  I  read,  and  have  mentioned  all  that 
was  then  known  of  Mr.  Stephen  Monkton's  death. 

When  I  gave  the  newspaper  back  to  Alfred  he  was 
too  much  agitated  to  speak,  but  he  reminded  me  by  a 
sign  that  he  was  anxiously  waiting  to  hear  what  I  had 
to  say.  My  position  was  a  very  trying  and  a  very  pain- 
ful one.  I  could  hardly  tell  what  consequences  might 
not  follow  any  want  of  caution  on  my  part,  and  could 
think  at  first  of  no  safer  plan  than  questioning  him  care- 
fully before  I  committed  myself  either  one  way  or  the 
other. 

"  Will  you  excuse  me  if  I  ask  you  a  question  or  two 
before  I  give  you  my  advice  ?"  said  I. 

He  nodded  impatiently. 

"  Yes,  yes — any  questions  you  like." 


168  THE  QUEEN*  OF  HEARTS. 

"  Were  you  at  any  time  in  the  habit  of  seeing  your 
uncle  frequently  ?" 

"  I  never  saw  him  more  than  twice  in  my  life — on  each 
occasion  when  I  was  a  mere  child." 

"  Then  you  could  have  had  no  very  strong  personal 
regard  for  him  ?" 

"  Regard  for  him !  I  should  have  been  ashamed  to 
feel  any  regard  for  him.  He  disgraced  us  wherever. he 
went." 

"  May  I  ask  if  any  family  motive  is  involved  in  your 
anxiety  to  recover  his  remains  ?" 

"  Family  motives  may  enter  into  it  among  others — but 
why  do  you  ask  ?" 

"  Because,  having  heard  that  you  employ  the  police  to 
assist  your  search,  I  was  anxious  to  know  whether  you 
had  stimulated  their  superiors  to  make  them  do  their 
best  in  your  service  by  giving  some  strong  personal 
reasons  at  head-quarters  for  the  very  unusual  project 
which  has  brought  you  here." 

"  I  give  no  reasons.  I  pay  for  the  work  I  want  done, 
and,  in  return  for  my  liberality,  I  am  treated  with  the 
most  infamous  indifference  on  all  sides.  A  stranger  in 
the  country,  and  badly  acquainted  with  the  language,  I 
can  do  nothing  to  help  myself.  The  authorities,  both  at 
Rome  and  in  this  place,  pretend  to  assist  me,  pretend  to 
search  and  inquire  as  I  would  have  them  search  and  in- 
quire, and  do  nothing  more.  I  am  insulted,  laughed  at, 
almost  to  my  face." 

"  Do  you  not  think  it  possible — mind,  I  have  no  wish 
to  excuse  the  misconduct  of  the  authorities,  and  do  not 
share  in  any  such  opinion  myself — but  do  you  not  think 
it  likely  that  the  police  may  doubt  whether  you  are  in 
earnest  ?" 

"  Not  in  earnest !"  he  cried,  starting  up  and  confront- 
ing me  fiercely,  with  wild  eyes  and  quickened  breath. 


THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS.  169 

"  Not  in  earnest !  You  think  I'm  not  in  earnest  too.  I 
know  you  think  it,  though  you  tell  me  you  don't.  Stop; 
before  we  say  another  word,  your  own  eyes  shall  con- 
vince you.  Come  here — only  for  a  minute — only  for  one 
minute !" 

I  followed  him  into  his  bedroom,  which  opened  out 
of  the  sitting-room.  At  one  side  of  his  bed  stood  a  large 
packing-case  of  plain  wood,  upward  of  seven  feet  in 
length. 

"  Open  the  lid  and  look  in,"  he  said,  "  while  I  hold  the 
candle  so  that  you  can  see." 

I  obeyed  his  directions,  and  discovered  to  my  astonish- 
ment that  the  packing-case  contained  a  leaden  coffin, 
magnificently  emblazoned  with  the  arms  of  the  Monkton 
family,  and  inscribed  in  old-fashioned  letters  with  the 
name  of  "  Stephen  Monkton,"  his  age  and  the  manner  of 
his  death  being  added  underneath. 

"  I  keep  his  coffin  ready  for  him,"  whispered  Alfred, 
close  at  my  ear.  "  Does  that  look  like  earnest  ?" 

It  looked  more  like  insanity — so  like  that  I  shrank 
from  answering  him. 

"  Yes !  yes !  I  see  you  are  convinced,"  he  continued, 
quickly ;  "  we  may  go  back  into  the  next  room,  and  may 
talk  without  restraint  on  either  side  now." 

On  returning  to  our  places,  I  mechanically  moved  my 
chair  away  from  the  table.  My  mind  was  by  this  time 
in  such  a  state  of  confusion  and  uncertainty  about  what 
it  would  be  best  for  me  to  say  or  do  next,  that  I  forgot 
for  the  moment  the  position  he  had  assigned  to  me  when 
we  lit  the  candles.  He  reminded  me  of  this  directly. 

"  Don't  move  away,"  he  said,  very  earnestly ;  "  keep 
on  sitting  in  the  light ;  pray  do  !  I'll  soon  tell  you  why 
I  am  so  particular  about  that.  But  first  give  me  your 
advice ;  help  me  in  my  great  distress  and  suspense.  Re- 
member, you  promised  me  you  would." 


170  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

I  made  an  effort  to  collect  my  thoughts,  and  succeed- 
ed. It  was  useless  to  treat  the  affair  otherwise  than  se- 
riously in  his  presence ;  it  would  have  been  cruel  not  to 
have  advised  him  as  I  best  could. 

"  You  know,"  I  said,  "that  two  days  after  the  draw- 
ing up  of  the  agreement  at  Naples,  the  duel  was  fought 
out  of  the  Neapolitan  States.  This  fact  has  of  course 
led  you  to  the  conclusion  that  all  inquiries  about  locali- 
ties had  better  be  confined  to  the  Roman  territory  ?" 

"  Certainly ;  the  search,  such  as  it  is,  has  been  made 
there,  and  there  only.  If  I  can  believe  the  police,  they 
and  their  agents  have  inquired  for  the  place  where  the 
duel  was  fought  (offering  a  large  reward  in  my  name  to 
the  person  who  can  discover  it)  all  along  the  high  road 
from  Naples  to  Rome.  They  have  also  circulated — at 
least  so  they  tell  me — descriptions  of  the  duelists  and 
their  seconds ;  have  left  an  agent  to  superintend  investi- 
gations at  the  post-house,  and  another  at  the  town  men- 
tioned as  meeting-points  in  the  agreement ;  and  have  en- 
deavored, by  correspondence  with  foreign  authorities,  to 
trace  the  Count  St.  Lo  and  Monsieur  Dalville  to  their 
place  or  places  of  refuge.  All  these  efforts,  supposing 
them  to  have  been  really  made,  have  hitherto  proved  ut- 
terly fruitless." 

"  My  impression  is,"  said  I,  after  a  moment's  consid- 
eration, "  that  all  inquiries  made  along  the  high  road,  or 
any  where  near  Rome  a:-e  likely  to  be  made  in  vain.  As 
to  the  discovery  of  your  uncle's  remains,  that  is,  I  think, 
identical  with  the  discovery  of  the  place  where  he  was 
shot ;  for  those  engaged  in  the  duel  would  certainly  not 
risk  detection  by  carrying  a  corpse  any  distance  with 
them  in  their  flight.  The  place,  then,  is  all  that  we  want 
to  find  out.  Now  let  us  consider  for  a  moment.  The 
dueling-party  changed  carriages ;  traveled  separately,  two 
and  two ;  doubtless  took  roundabout  roads ;  stopped  at 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  Ill 

the  post-house  and  the  town  as  a  blind ;  walked,  perhaps, 
a  considerable  distance  unguided.  Depend  upon  it,  such 
precautions  as  these  (which  we  know  they  must  have 
employed)  left  them  very  little  time  out  of  the  two  days 
— though  they  might  start  at  sunrise  and  not  stop  at 
nightfall  —  for  straightforward  traveling.  My  belief 
therefore  is,  that  the  duel  was  fought  somewhere  near 
the  Neapolitan  frontier ;  and,  if  I  had  been  the  police 
agent  who  conducted  the  search,  I  should  only  have  pur- 
sued it  parallel  with  the  frontier,  starting  from  west  to 
east  till  I  got  up  among  the  lonely  places  in  the  mount- 
ains. That  is  my  idea;  do  you  think  it  worth  any 
thing?" 

His  face  flushed  all  over  in  an  instant.  "  I  think  it  an 
inspiration !"  he  cried.  "  Not  a  day  is  to  be  lost  in  car- 
rying out  our  plan.  The  police  are  not  to  be  trusted 
with  it.  I  must  start  myself  to-morrow  morning ;  and 
you—" 

He  stopped  ;  his  face  grew  suddenly  pale ;  he  sighed 
heavily ;  his  eyes  wandered  once  more  into  the  fixed  look 
at  vacancy;  and  the  rigid,  deathly  expression  fastened 
again  upon  all  his  features. 

"  I  must  tell  you  my  secret  before  I  talk  of  to-mor- 
row," he  proceeded,  faintly.  "  If  I  hesitated  any  longer 
at  confessing  every  thing,  I  should  be  unworthy  of  your 
past  kindness,  unworthy  of  the  help  which  it  is  my  last 
hope  that  you  will  gladly  give  me  when  you  have  heard 
all." 

I  begged  him  to  wait  until  he  was  more  composed, 
until  he  was  better  able  to  speak ;  but  he  did  not  appear 
to  notice  what  I  said.  Slowly,  and  struggling  as  it  seem- 
ed against  himself,  he  turned  a  Little  away  from  me,  and, 
bending  his  head  over  the  table,  supported  it  on  his 
hand.  The  packet  of  letters  with  which  I  had  seen  him 
occupied  when  I  came  in  lay  just  beneath  his  eyes.  He 
looked  down  on  it  steadfastly  when  he  next  spoke  to  me. 


172  THE   QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

"  You  were  born,  I  believe,  in  our  county,"  he  said ; 
"  perhaps,  therefore,  you  may  have  heard  at  some  time  of 
a  curious  old  prophecy  about  our  family,  which  is  still 
preserved  among  the  traditions  of  Wincot  Abbey  ?" 

"  I  have  heard  of  such  a  prophecy,"  I  answered,  "  but 
I  never  knew  in  what  terms  it  was  expressed.  It  pro- 
fessed to  predict  the  extinction  of  your  family,  or  some- 
thing of  that  sort,  did  it  not  ?" 

"  No  inquiries,"  he  went  on,  "  have  traced  back  that 
prophecy  to  the  time  when  it  was  first  made ;  none  of 
our  family  records  tell  us  any  thing  of  its  origin.  Old 
servants  and  old  tenants  of  ours  remember  to  have  heard 
it  from  their  fathers  and  grandfathers.  The  monks, 
whom  we  succeeded  in  the  Abbey  in  Henry  the  Eighth's 
time,  got  knowledge  of  it  in  some  way,  for  I  myself  dis- 
covered the  rhymes,  in  which  we  know  the  prophecy  to 
have  been  preserved  from  a  very  remote  period,  written 
on  a  blank  leaf  of  one  of  the  Abbey  manuscripts.  These 
are  the  verses,  if  verses  they  deserve  to  be  called : 

When  in  Wincot  vault  a  place 

Waits  for  one  of  Monkton's  race- 
When  that  one  forlorn  shall  lie 

Graveless  under  open  sky, 

Beggared  of  six  feet  of  earth, 

Though  lord  of  acres  from  his  birth— 

That  shall  be  a  certain  sign 

Of  the  end  of  Monkton's  line. 

Dwindling  ever  faster,  faster, 

Dwindling  to  the  last-left  master ; 

From  mortal  ken,  from  light  of  day, 

Monkton's  race  shall  pass  away." 

"The  prediction  seems  almost  vague  enough  to  have 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEAKTS.  173 

been  uttered  by  an  ancient  oracle,"  said  I,  observing  that 
he  waited,  after  repeating  the  verses,  as  if  expecting  rne 
to  say  something. 

"  Vague  or  not,  it  is  being  accomplished,"  he  return- 
ed. "•  1  am  now  the  '  last-left  master' — the  last  of  that 
elder  line  of  our  family  at  which  the  prediction  points ; 
and  the  corpse  of  Stephen  Monkton  is  not  in  the  vaults 
of  Wincot  Abbey.  Wait  before  you  exclaim  against  me. 
I  have  more  to  say  about  this.  Long  before  the  Abbey 
was  ours,  when  we  lived  in  the  ancient  manor-house  near 
it  (the  very  ruins  of  which  have  long  since  disappeared), 
the  family  burying-place  was  in  the  vault  under  the  Ab- 
bey chapel.  Whether  in  those  remote  times  the  predic- 
tion against  us  was  known  and  dreaded  or  not,  this  much 
is  certain :  every  one  of  the  Monktons  (whether  living 
at  the  Abbey  or  on  the  smaller  estate  in  Scotland)  was 
buried  in  Wincot  vault,  no  matter  at  what  risk  or  what 
sacrifice.  In  the  fierce  fighting  days  of  the  olden  time, 
the  bodies  of  my  ancestors  who  fell  in  foreign  places 
were  recovered  and  brought  back  to  Wincot,  though  it 
often  cost  not  heavy  ransom  only,  but  desperate  blood- 
shed as  well,  to  obtain  them.  This  superstition,  if  you 
please  to  call  it  so,  has  never  died  out  of  the  family  from 
that  time  to  the  present  day ;  for  centuries  the  succession 
of  the  dead  in  the  vault  at  the  Abbey  has  been  unbroken 
— absolutely  unbroken — until  now.  The  place  mention- 
ed in  the  prediction  as  waiting  to  be  filled  is  Stephen 
Monkton's  place ;  the  voice  that  cries  vainly  to  the  earth 
for  shelter  is  the  spirit-voice  of  the  dead.  As  surely  as 
if  I  saw  it,  I  know  that  they  have  left  him  unburied  on 
the  ground  where  he  fell !" 

He  stopped  rne  before  I  could  utter  a  word  in  remon- 
strance by  slowly  rising  to  his  feet,  and  pointing  in  the 
same  direction  toward  which  his  eyes  had  wandered  a 

short  time  since. 

8* 


174  THE    QUEEN   OF    HEARTS. 

"•  I  can  guess  what  you  want  to  ask  me,"  he  exclaimed, 
sternly  and  loudly ;  "  you  want  to  ask  me  how  I  can  be 
mad  enough  to  believe  in  a  doggerel  prophecy  uttered 
in  an  age  of  superstition  to  awe  the  most  ignorant  hear- 
ers. I  answer"  (at  those  words  his  voice  sank  suddenly 
to  a  whisper),  "  I  answer,  because  Stephen  Monkton  him- 
self stands  there  at  this  moment  confirming  me  in  my 
belief." 

Whether  it  was  the  awe  and  horror  that  looked  out 
ghastly  from  his  face  as  he  confronted  me,  whether  it 
was  that  I  had  never  hitherto  fairly  believed  in  the  re- 
ports about  his  madness,  and  that  the  conviction  of  their 
truth  now  forced  itself  upon  me  on  a  sudden,  I  know  not, 
but  I  felt  my  blood  curdling  as  he  spoke,  and  I  knew  in 
my  own  heart,  as  I  sat  there  speechless,  that  I  dare  not 
turn  round  and  look  where  he  was  still  pointing  close  at 
my  side. 

"  I  see  there,"  he  went  on,  in  the  same  whispering 
voice,  "  the  figure  of  a  dark-complexioned  man  standing 
up  with  his  head  uncovered.  One  of  his  hands,  still 
clutching  a  pistol,  has  fallen  to  his  side ;  the  other  press- 
es a  bloody  handkerchief  over  his  mouth.  The  spasm 
of  mortal  agony  convulses  his  features  ;  but  I  know  them 
for  the  features  of  a  swarthy  man  who  twice  frightened 
me  by  taking  me  up  in  his  arms  when  I  was  a  child  at 
Wincot  Abbey.  I  asked  the  nurses  at  the  time  who 
that  man  was,  and  they  told  me  it  was  my  uncle,  Stephen 
Monkton.  Plainly,  as  if  he  stood  there  living,  I  see  him 
now  at  your  side,  with  the  death-glare  in  his  great  black 
eyes ;  and  so  have  I  ever  seen  him,  since  the  moment 
when  he  was  shot ;  at  home  and  abroad,  waking  or 
sleeping,  day  and  night,  we  are  always  together,  wher- 
ever I  go !" 

His -whispering  tones  sank  into  almost  inaudible  mur- 
muring as  he  pronounced  these  last  words.  From  the 


THE    QUEEN    OF   HEARTS. 


175 


direction  and  expression  of  his  eyes,  I  suspected  that  he 
was  speaking  to  the  apparition.  If  I  had  beheld  it  my- 
self at  that  moment,  it  would  have  been,  I  think,  a  less 
horrible  sight  to  witness  than  to  see  him,  as  I  saw  him 
now,  muttering  inarticulately  at  vacancy.  My  own 
nerves  were  more  shaken  than  I  could  have  thought 
possible  by  what  had  passed.  A  vague  dread  of  being 
near  him  in  his  present  mood  came  over  me,  and  I  moved 
back  a  step  or  two. 

He  noticed  the  action  instantly. 

"  Don't  go !  pray — pray  don't  go !  Have  I  alarmed 
you  ?  Don't  you  believe  me  ?  Do  the  lights  make  your 
eyes  ache  ?  I  only  asked  you  to  sit  in  the  glare  of  the 
candles  because  I  could  not  bear  to  see  the  light  that  al- 
ways shines  from  the  phantom  there  at  dusk  shining 
over  you  as  you  sat  in  the  shadow.  Don't  go  —  don't 
leave  me  yet !" 

There  was  an  utter  forlornness,  an  unspeakable  misery 
in  his  face  as  he  spoke  these  words,  which  gave  me  back 
my  self-possession  by  the  simple  process  of  first  moving 
me  to  pity.  I  resumed  my  chair,  and  said  that  I  would 
stay  with  him  as  long  as  he  wished. 

"  Thank  you  a  thousand  times.  You  are  patience  and 
kindness  itself,"  he  said,  going  back  to  his  former  place 
and  resuming  his  former  gentleness  of  manner.  "  Now 
that  I  have  got  over  my  first  confession  of  the  misery 
that  follows  me  in  secret  wherever  I  go,  I  think  I  can 
tell  you  calmly  all  that  remains  to  be  told.  You  see,  as 
I  said,  my  Uncle  Stephen" — he  turned  away  his  head 
quickly,  and  looked  down  at  the  table  as  the  name  pass- 
ed his  lips — "  my  Uncle  Stephen  came  twice  to  Wincot 
while  I  was  a  child,  and  on  both  occasions  frightened  me. 
dreadfully.  He  only  took  me  up  in  his  arms  and  spoke 
to  me — very  kindly,  as  I  afterward  heard,  for  him — but 
he  terrified  me,  nevertheless.  Perhaps  I  was  frightened 


176  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

at  his  great  stature,  his  swarthy  complexion,  and  his 
thick  black  hair  and  mustache,  as  other  children  might 
have  been ;  perhaps  the  mere  sight  of  him  had  some 
strange  influence  on  me  which  I  could  not  then  under- 
stand and  can  not  now  explain.  However  it  was,  I  used 
to  dream  of  him  long  after  he  had  gone  away,  and  to 
fancy  that  he  was  stealing  on  me  to  catch  me  up  in  his 
arms  whenever  I  was  left  in  the  dark.  The  servants 
who  took  care  of  me  found  this  out,  and  used  to  threaten 
me  with  my  Uncle  Stephen  whenever  I  was  perverse 
and  difficult  to  manage.  As  I  grew  up,  I  still  retained 
my  vague  dread  and  abhorrence  of  our  absent  relative. 
I  always  listened  intently,  yet  without  knowing  why, 
whenever  his  name  was  mentioned  by  my  father  or  my 
mother  —  h'stened  with  an  unaccountable  presentiment 
that  something  terrible  had  happened  to  him,  or  was 
about  to  happen  to  me.  This  feeling  only  changed  when 
I  was  left  alone  in  the  Abbey;  and  then  it  seemed  to 
merge  into  the  eager  curiosity  which  had  begun  to  grow 
on  me,  rather  before  that  time,  about  the  origin  of  the 
ancient  prophecy  predicting  the  extinction  of  our  race. 
Are  you  following  me  ?" 

"  I  follow  every  word  with  the  closest  attention." 
"  You  must  know,  then,  that  I  had  first  found  out 
some  fragments  of  the  old  rhyme  in  which  the  prophecy 
occurs  quoted  as  a  curiosity  in  an  antiquarian  book  in 
the  library.  On  the  page  opposite  this  quotation  had 
been  pasted  a  rude  old  wood-cut,  representing  a  dark- 
haired  man,  whose  face  was  so  strangely  like  what  I  re* 
membered  of  my  Uncle  Stephen  that  the  portrait  abso- 
lutely startled  me.  When  I  asked  my  father  about  this 
— it  was  then  just  before  his  death — he  either  knew,  or 
pretended  to  know,  nothing  of  it ;  and  when  I  afterward 
mentioned  the  prediction  he  fretfully  changed  the  sub* 
ject.  It  was  just  the  same  with  our  chaplain  when  ] 


THE    tJUEEX    OF    HEARTS.  177 

spoke  to  him.  He  said  the  portrait  had  been  done  cen- 
turies before  my  uncle  was  born,  and  called  the  prophecy 
doggerel  and  nonsense.  I  used  to  argue  with  him  on 
the  latter  point,  asking  why  we  Catholics,  who  believed 
that  the  gift  of  working  miracles  had  never  departed 
from  certain  favored  persons,  might  not  just  as  well  be- 
lieve that  the  gift  of  prophecy  had  never  departed  either? 
He  would  not  dispute  with  me ;  he  would  only  say  that 
I  must  not  waste  time  in  thinking  of  such  trifles ;  that  I 
had  more  imagination  than  was  good  for  me,  and  must 
suppress  instead  of  exciting  it.  Such  advice  as  this  only 
irritated  my  curiosity.  I  determined  secretly  to  search 
throughout  the  oldest  uninhabited  part  of  the  Abbey, 
and  to  try  if  I  could  not  find  out  from  forgotten  family 
records  what  the  portrait  was,  and  when  the  prophecy 
had  been  first  written  or  uttered.  Did  you  ever  pass  a 
day  alone  in  the  long-deserted  chambers  of  an  ancient 
house?" 

"  Never !  such  solitude  as  that  is  not  at  all  to  my 
taste." 

"  Ah  !  what  a  life  it  was  when  I  began  my  search.  I 
I  should  like  to  live  it  over  again.  Such  tempting  sus- 
pense, such  strange  discoveries,  such  wild  fancies,  such 
inthralling  terrors,  all  belonged  to  that  life.  Only  think 
of  breaking  open  the  door  of  a  room  which  no  living  soul 
had  entered  before  you  for  nearly  a  hundred  years ;  think 
of  the  first  step  forward  into  a  region  of  airless,  awful 
stillness,  where  the  light  falls  faint  and  sickly  through 
closed  windows  and  rotting  curtains ;  think  of  the  ghostly 
creaking  of  the  old  floor  that  cries  out  on  you  for  tread- 
ing on  it,  step  as  softly  as  you  will ;  think  of  arms,  hel- 
mets, weird  tapestries  of  by-gone  days,  that  seem  to  be 
moving  out  on  you  from  the  walls  as  you  first  walk  up 
to  them  in  the  dim  light ;  think  of  prying  into  great 
cabinets  and  iron-clasped  chests,  not  knowing  what  hor- 


178  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

rors  may  appear  when  you  tear  them  open ;  of  poring 
over  their  contents  till  twilight  stole  on  you,  and  dark- 
ness grew  terrible  in  the  lonely  place ;  of  trying  to  leave 
it,  and  not  being  able  to  go,  as  if  something  held  you; 
of  wind  wailing  at  you  outside ;  of  shadows  darkening 
round  you,  and  closing  you  up  in  obscurity  within — only 
think  of  these  things,  and  you  may  imagine  the  fascina- 
tion of  suspense  and  terror  in  such  a  life  as  mine  was  in 
those  past  days." 

(I  shrunk  from  imagining  that  life :  it  was  bad  enough 
to  see  its  results,  as  I  saw  them  before  me  now.) 

"  Well,  my  search  lasted  months  and  months  ;  then  it 
was  suspended  a  little  ;  then  resumed.  In  whatever 
direction  I  pursued  it,  I  always  found  something  to  lure 
me  on.  Terrible  confessions  of  past  crimes,  shocking 
proofs  of  secret  wickedness  that  had  been  hidden  securely 
from  all  eyes  but  mine,  came  to  light.  Sometimes  these 
discoveries  were  associated  with  particular  parts  of  the 
Abbey,  which  have  had  a  horrible  interest  of  their  own 
for  me  ever  since ;  sometimes  with  certain  old  portraits 
in  the  picture-gallery,  which  I  actually  dreaded  to  look 
at  after  what  I  had  found  out.  There  were  periods  when 
the  results  of  this  search  of  mine  so  horrified  me  that  I 
determined  to  give  it  up  entirely ;  but  I  never  could  per- 
severe in  my  resolution ;  the  temptation  to  go  on  seemed 
at  certain  intervals  to  get  too  strong  for  me,  and  then  I 
yielded  to  it  again  and  again.  At  last  I  found  the  book 
that  had  belonged  to  the  monks  with  the  whole  of  the 
prophecy  written  in  the  blank  leaf.  This  first  success 
encouraged  me  to  get  back  farther  yet  in  the  family 
records.  I  had  discovered  nothing  hitherto  of  the  iden- 
tity of  the  mysterious  portrait ;  but  the  same  intuitive 
conviction  which  had  assured  me  of  its  extraordinary  re- 
semblance to  my  Uncle  Stephen  seemed  also  to  assure 
me  that  he  must  be  more  closely  connected  with  the 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  179 

prophecy,  and  must  know  more  of  it  than  any  one  else. 
I  had  no  means  of  holding  any  communication  with  him, 
no  means  of  satisfying  myself  whether  this  strange  idea 
of  mine  were  right  or  wrong,  until  the  day  when  my 
doubts  were  settled  forever  by  the  same  terrible  proof 
which  is  now  present  to  me  in  this  very  room." 

He  paused  for  a  moment,  and  looked  at  me  intently 
and  suspiciously ;  then  asked  if  I  believed  all  he  had  said 
to  me  so  far.  My  instant  reply  in  the  affirmative  seemed 
to  satisfy  his  doubts,  and  he  went  on. 

"  On  a  fine  evening  in  February  I  was  standing  alone 
in  one  of  the  deserted  rooms  of  the  western  turret  at  the 
Abbey,  looking  at  the  sunset.  Just  before  the  sun  went 
down  I  felt  a  sensation  stealing  over  me  which  it  is  im- 
possible to  explain.  I  saw  nothing,  heard  nothing,  knew 
nothing.  This  utter  self-oblivion  came  suddenly  ;  it  was 
not  fainting,  for  I  did  not  fall  to  the  ground,  did  not 
move  an  inch  from  my  place.  If  such  a  thing  could  be, 
I  should  say  it  was  the  temporary  separation  of  soul  and 
body  without  death ;  but  all  description  of  my  situation 
at  that  time  is  impossible.  Call  my  state  what  you  will, 
trance  or  catalepsy,  I  know  that  I  remained  standing  by 
the  window  utterly  unconscious — dead,  mind  and  body 
— until  the  sun  had  set.  Then  I  came  to  my  senses 
again ;  and  then,  when  I  opened  my  eyes,  there  wras  the 
apparition  of  Stephen  Monkton  standing  opposite  to  me, 
faintly  luminous,  just  as  it  stands  opposite  me  at  this 
very  moment  by  your  side." 

"  Was  this  before  the  news  of  the  duel  reached  En 
gland  ?"  I  asked. 

"  Two  weeks  before  the  news  of  it  reached  us  at  Win- 
cot.  And  even  when  we  heard  of  the  duel,  we  did  not 
hear  of  the  day  on  which  it  was  fought.  I  only  found 
that  out  when  the  document  which  you  have  read  was 
published  in  the  French  newspaper.  The  date  of  that 


180  THE    QUEEN    OF    1IEAKTS. 

document,  you  will  remember,  is  February  22d,  and  it  is 
stated  that  the  duel  was  fought  two  days  afterward.  I 
wrote  down  in  my  pocket-book,  on  the  evening  when  I 
saw  the  phantom,  the  day  of  the  month  on  which  it  first 
appeared  to  me.  That  day  was  the  24th  of  February." 

He  paused  again,  as  if  expecting  me  to  say  something. 
After  the  words  he  had  just  spoken,  what  could  I  say  ? 
what  could  I  think  ? 

"  Even  in  the  first  horror  of  first  seeing  the  appari- 
tion," he  went  on,  "  the  prophecy  against  our  house  came 
to  my  mind,  and  with  it  the  conviction  that  I  beheld  be- 
fore me,  in  that  spectral  presence,  the  warning  of  my 
own  doom.  As  soon  as  I  recovered  a  little,  I  determ- 
ined, nevertheless,  to  test  the  reality  of  what  I  saw  ;  to 
find  out  whether  I  was  the  dupe  of  my  own  diseased 
fancy  or  not.  I  left  the  turret ;  the  phantom  left  it  with 
me.  I  made  an  excuse  to  have  the  drawing-room  at  the 
Abbey  brilliantly  lighted  up ;  the  figure  was  still  oppo- 
site me.  I  walked  out  into  the  park ;  it  was  there  in  the 
clear  starlight.  I  went  away  from  home,  and  traveled 
many  miles  to  the  sea-side ;  still  the  tall  dark  man  in  his 
death-agony  was  with  me.  After  this  I  strove  against 
the  fatality  no  more.  I  returned  to  the  Abbey,  and  tried 
to  resign  myself  to  my  misery.  But  this  was  not  to  be. 
I  had  a  hope  that  was  dearer  to  me  than  my  own  life ;  I 
had  one  treasure  belonging  to  me  that  I  shuddered  at 
the  prospect  of  losing ;  and  when  the  phantom  presence 
stood  a  warning  obstacle  between  me  and  this  one  treas- 
ure, this  dearest  hope,  then  my  misery  grew  heavier  than 
I  could  bear.  You  must  know  what  I  am  alluding  to ; 
you  must  have  heard  often  that  I  was  engaged  to  be 
married  ?" 

"  Yes,  often.  I  have  some  acquaintance  myself  with 
Miss  Elmslie." 

"You  never  can  know  all  that  she  has  sacrificed  for 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  181 

me — never  can  imagine  what  I  have  felt  for  years  and 
years  past" — his  voice  trembled,  and  the  tears  came  into 
his  eyes — "  but  I  dare  not  trust  myself  to  speak  of  that ; 
the  thought  of  the  old  happy  days  in  the  Abbey  almost 
breaks  my  heart  now.  Let  me  get  back  to  the  other 
subject.  I  must  tell  you  that  I  kept  the  frightful  vision 
which  pursued  me,  at  all  times  and  in  in  all  places,  a  se- 
cret from  every  body,  knowing  the  vile  reports  about  my 
having  inherited  madness  from  my  family,  and  fearing 
that  an  unfair  advantage  would  be  taken  of  any  confes- 
sion that  I  might  make.  Though  the  phantom  always 
stood  opposite  to  me,  and  therefore  always  appeared  ei- 
ther before  or  by  the  side  of  any  person  to  whom  I  spoke, 
I  soon  schooled  myself  to  hide  from  others  that  I  was 
looking  at  it  except  on  rare  occasions,  when  I  have  per- 
haps betrayed  myself  to  you.  But  my  self-possession 
availed  me  nothing  with  Ada.  The  day  of  our  marriage 
was  approaching." 

He  stopped  and  shuddered.  I  waited  in  silence  till  he 
had  controlled  himself. 

"Think,"  he  went  on,  "think  of  what  I  must  have 
suffered  at  looking  always  on  that  hideous  vision  when- 
ever I  looked  on  my  betrothed  wife  !  Think  of  my  tak- 
ing her  hand,  and  seeming  to  take  it  through  the  figure 
of  the  apparition  !  Think  of  the  calm  angel-face  and  the 
tortured  spectre-face  being  always  together  whenever 
my  eyes  met  hers !  Think  of  this,  and  you  will  not  won- 
der that  I  betrayed  my  secret  to  her.  She  eagerly  en- 
treated to  know  the  worst — nay,  more,  she  insisted  on 
knowing  it.  At  her  bidding  I  told  all,  and  then  left  her 
free  to  break  our  engagement.  The  thought  of  death 
was  in  my  heart  as  I  spoke  the  parting  words — death  by 
my  own  act,  if  life  still  held  out  after  our  separation. 
She  suspected  that  thought ;  she  knew  it,  and  never  left 
me  till  her  good  influence  had  destroyed  it  forever.  But 


182  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEAKTS. 

for  her  I  should  not  have  been  alive  now ;  but  for  her  I 
should  never  have  attempted  the  project  which  has 
brought  me  here." 

"  Do  you  mean  that  it  was  at  Miss  Elmslie's  sugges- 
tion that  you  came  to  Naples  ?"  I  asked,  in  amazement. 

"I  mean  that  what  she  said  suggested  the  design 
which  has  brought  me  to  Naples,"  he  answered.  "  While 
I  believed  that  the  phantom  had  appeared  to  me  as  the 
fatal  messenger  of  death,  there  was  no  comfort — there 
was  misery,  rather,  in  hearing  her  say  that  no  power  on 
earth  should  make  her  desert  me,  and  that  she  would 
live  for  me,  and  for  me  only,  through  every  trial.  But 
it  was  far  different  when  we  afterward  reasoned  together 
about  the  purpose  which  the  apparition  had  come  to  ful- 
fill— far  different  when  she  showed  me  that  its  mission 
might  be  for  good  instead  of  for  evil,  and  that  the  warn- 
ing it  was  sent  to  give  might  be  to  my  profit  instead  of 
to  my  loss.  At  those  words,  the  new  idea  which  gave 
the  new  hope  of  life  came  to  me  in  an  instant.  I  be- 
lieved then,  what  I  believe  now,  that  I  have  a  supernat- 
ural warrant  for  my  errand  here.  In  that  faith  I  live ; 
without  it  I  should  die.  She  never  ridiculed  it,  never 
scorned  it  as  insanity.  Mark  what  I  say!  The  spirit 
that  appeared  to  me  in  the  Abbey — that  has  never  left 
me  since — that  stands  there  now  by  your  side,  warns  me 
to  escape  from  the  fatality  which  hangs  over  our  race, 
and  commands  me,  if  I  would  avoid  it,  to  bury  the  un- 
buried  dead.  Mortal  loves  and  mortal  interests  must 
bow  to  that  awful  bidding.  The  spectre-presence  will 
never  leave  me  till  I  have  sheltered  the  corpse  that  cries 
to  the  earth  to  cover  it !  I  dare  not  return — I  dare  not 
marry  till  I  have  filled  the  place  that  is  empty  in  Wincot 
vault." 

His  eyes  flashed  and  dilated — his  voice  deepened — a 
fanatic  ecstasy  shone  in  his  expression  as  he  uttered 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS,  183 

these  words.  Shocked  and  grieved  as  I  was,  I  made  no 
attempt  to  remonstrate  or  to  reason  with  him.  It  would 
have  been  useless  to  have  referred  to  any  of  the  usual 
commonplaces  about  optical  delusions  or  diseased  imag- 
inations— worse  than  useless  to  have  attempted  to  ac- 
count by  natural  causes  for  any  of  the  extraordinary 
coincidences  and  events  of  which  he  had  spoken.  Brief- 
ly as  he  had  referred  to  Miss  Elmslie,  he  had  said  enough 
to  show  me  that  the  only  hope  of  the  poor  girl  who  loved 
him  best  and  had  known  him  longest  of  any  one  was  in 
humoring  his  delusions  to  the  last.  How  faithfully  she 
still  clftng  to  the  belief  that  she  could  restore  him !  How 
resolutely  was  she  sacrificing  herself  to  his  morbid  fan- 
cies, in  the  hope  of  a  happy  future  that  might  never 
come !  Little  as  I  knew  of  Miss  Elmslie,  the  mere 
thought  of  her  situation,  as  I  now  reflected  on  it,  made 
me  feel  sick  at  heart. 

"  They  call  me  Mad  Monkton !"  he  exclaimed,  sud- 
denly breaking  the  silence  between  us  during  the  last 
few  minutes.  "Here  and  in  England  every  body  be- 
lieves I  am  out  of  my  senses  except  Ada  and  you.  She 
has  been  my  salvation,  and  you  will  be  my  salvation  too. 
Something  told  me  that  when  I  first  met  you  walking  in 
the  Villa  Reale.  I  struggled  against  the  strong  desire 
that  was  in  me  to  trust  my  secret  to  you,  but  I  could 
resist  it  no  longer  when  I  saw  you  to-night  at  the  ball : 
the  phantom  seemed  to  draw  me  on  to  you  as  you  stood 
alone  in  the  quiet  room.  Tell  me  more  of  that  idea  of 
yours  about  finding  the  place  where  the  duel  was  fought. 
If  I  set  out  to-morrow  to  seek  for  it  myself,  where  must 
I  go  to  first  ?  where  ?"  He  stopped  ;  his  strength  was 
evidently  becoming  exhausted,  and  his  mind  was  grow- 
ing confused.  "  What  am  I  to  do  ?  I  can't  remember. 
You  know  every  thing — will  you  not  help  me?  My 
misery  has  made  me  unable  to  help  myself." 


184  THE   QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

He  stopped,  murmured  something  about  failing  if  he 
went  to  the  frontier  alone,  and  spoke  confusedly  of  de- 
lays that  might  be  fatal,  then  tried  to  utter  the  name  of 
"Ada;"  but,  hi  pronouncing  the  first  letter,  his  voice 
faltered,  and,  turning  abruptly  from  me,  he  burst  into 
tears. 

My  pity  for  him  got  the  better  of  my  prudence  at  that 
moment,  and,  without  thinking  of  responsibilities,  I 
promised  at  once  to  do  for  him  whatever  he  asked.  The 
wild  triumph  in  his  expression  as  he  started  up  and 
seized  my  hand  showed  me  that  I  had  better  have  been 
more  cautious ;  but  it  was  too  late  now  to  retra«t  what 
I  had  said.  The  next  best  thing  to  do  was  to  try  if  I 
could  not  induce  him  to  compose  himself  a  little,  and 
then  to  go  away  and  think  coolly  over  the  whole  affair 
by  myself. 

"Yes,  yes,"  he  rejoined,  in  answer  to  the  few  words 
I  now  spoke  to  try  and  calm  him,  "  don't  be  afraid  about 
me.  After  what  you  have  said,  I'll  answer  for  my  own 
coolness  and  composure  under  all  emergencies.  I  have 
been  so  long  used  to  the  apparition  that  I  hardly  feel  its 
presence  at  all  except  on  rare  occasions.  Besides,  I  have 
here  in  this  little  packet  of  letters  the  medicine  for  every 
malady  of  the  sick  heart.  They  are  Ada's  letters;  I 
read  them  to  calm  me  whenever  my  misfortune  seems 
to  get  the  better  of  my  endurance.  I  wanted  that  half 
hour  to  read  them  in  to-night  before  you  came,  to  make 
myself  fit  to  see  you,  and  I  shall  go  through  them  again 
after  you  are  gone  ;  so,  once  more,  don't  be  afraid  about 
me.  I  know  I  shall  succeed  with  your  help,  and  Ada 
shall  thank  you  as  you  deserve  to  be  thanked  when  we 
get  back  to  England.  If  you  hear  the  fools  at  Naples 
talk  about  my  being  mad,  don't  trouble  yourself  to  con- 
tradict them :  the  scandal  is  so  contemptible  that  it  must 
end  by  contradicting  itself." 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  185 

I  left  him,  promising  to  return  early  the  next  day. 

When  I  got  back  to  my  hotel,  I  felt  that  any  idea  of 
sleeping  after  all  that  I  had  seen  and  heard  was  out  of 
the  question ;  so  I  lit  my  pipe,  and,  sitting  by  the  win- 
dow— how  it  refreshed  my  mind  just  then  to  look  at  the 
calm  moonlight! — tried  to  think  what  it  would  be  best 

O 

to  do.  In  the  first  place,  any  appeal  to  doctors  or  to 
Alfred's  friends  in  England  was  out  of  the  question.  I 
could  not  persuade  myself  that  his  intellect  was  suffi- 
ciently disordered  to  justify  me,  under  existing  circum- 
stances, in  disclosing  the  secret  which  he  had  intrusted 
to  my  keeping.  In  the  second  place,  all  attempts  on  my 
part  to  induce  him  to  abandon  the  idea  of  searching  out 
his  uncle's  remains  would  be  utterly  useless  after  what 
I  had  incautiously  said  to  him.  Having  settled  these 
two  conclusions,  the  only  really  great  difficulty  which 
remained  to  pei*plex  me  was  whether  I  was  justified  in 
aiding  him  to  execute  his  extraordinary  purpose. 

Supposing  that,  with  my  help,  he  found  Mr.  Monkton's 
body,  and  took  it  back  with  him  to  England,  was  it  right 
in  me  thus  to  lend  myself  to  promoting  the  marriage 
which  would  most  likely  follow  these  events — a  marriage 
which  it  might  be  the  duty  of  every  one  to  prevent  at  all 
hazards  ?  This  set  me  thinking  about  the  extent  of  his 
madness,  or  to  speak  more  mildly  and  more  correctly  of 
his  delusion.  Sane  he  certainly  was  on  all  ordinary  sub- 
jects ;  nay,  in  all  the  narrative  parts  of  what  he  had  said 
J:o  me  on  this  very  evening  he  had  spoken  clearly  and 
connectedly.  As  for  the  story  of  the  apparition,  other 
men,  with  intellects  as  clear  as  the  intellects  of  their 
neighbors,  had  fancied  themselves  pursued  by  a  phan- 
tom, and  had  even  written  about  it  in  a  high  strain  of 
philosophical  speculation.  It  was  plain  that  the  real  hal- 
lucination in  the  case  now  before  me  lay  in  Monkton's 
conviction  of  the  truth  of  the  old  prophecy,  and  in  his 


186  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

idea  that  the  fancied  apparition  was  a  supernatural  warn- 
ing to  him  to  evade  its  denunciations ;  and  it  was  equal- 
ly clear  that  both  delusions  had  been  produced,  in  the 
first  instance,  by  the  lonely  life  he  had  led  acting  on  a 
naturally  excitable  temperament,  which  was  rendered 
farther  liable  to  moral  disease  by  an  hereditary  taint  of 
insanity. 

Was  this  curable?  Miss  Elmslie,  who  knew  him  far 
better  than  I  did,  seemed  by  her  conduct  to  think  so. 
Had  I  any  reason  or  right  to  determine  offhand  that  she 
was  mistaken  ?  Supposing  I  refused  to  go  to  the  frontier 
with  him,  he  would  then  most  certainly  depart  by  him- 
self, to  commit  all  sorts  of  errors,  and  perhaps  to  meet 
with  all  sorts  of  accidents ;  while  I,  an  idle  man,  with 
my  time  entirely  at  my  own  disposal,  was  stopping  at 
Naples,  and  leaving  him  to  his  fate  after  I  had  suggested 
the  plan  of  his  expedition,  and  had  encouraged  him  to 
confide  in  me.  In  this  way  I  kept  turning  the  subject 
over  and  over  again  in  my  mind,  being  quite  free,  let  me 
add,  from  looking  at  it  in  any  other  than  a  practical  point 
of  view.  I  firmly  believed,  as  a  derider  of  all  ghost  sto- 
ries, that  Alfred  was  deceiving  himself  in  fancying  that 
he  had  seen  the  apparition  of  his  uncle  before  the  news 
of  Mr.  Monkton's  death  reached  England,  and  I  was  on 
this  account,  therefore,  uninfluenced  by  the  slightest  in- 
fection of  my  unhappy  friend's  delusions  when  I  at  last 
fairly  decided  to  accompany  him  in  his  extraordinary 
search.  Possibly  my  harum-scarum  fondness  for  excite- 
ment  at  that  time  biased  me  a  little  in  forming  my  reso- 
lution ;  but  I  must  add,  in  common  justice  to  myself, 
that  I  also  acted  from  motives  of  real  sympathy  for 
Monkton,  and  from  a  sincere  wish  to  allay,  if  I  could, 
the  anxiety  of  the  poor  girl  who  was  still  so  faithfully 
waiting  and  hoping  for  him  far  away  in  England. 

Certain  arrangements  preliminary  to  our  departure, 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  187 

which  I  found  myself  obliged  to  make  after  a  second  in- 
terview with  Alfred,  betrayed  the  object  of  our  journey 
to  most  of  our  Neapolitan  friends.  The  astonishment 
of  every  body  was  of  course  unbounded,  and  the  nearly 
universal  suspicion  that  I  must  be  as  mad  in  my  way 
as  Monkton  himself  showed  itself  pretty  plainly  in  my 
presence.  Some  people  actually  tried  to  combat  my  res- 
olution by  telling  me  what  a  shameless  profligate  Stephen 
Monkton  had  been — as  if  I  had  a  strong  personal  interest 
in  hunting  out  his  remains !  Ridicule  moved  me  as  little 
as  any  arguments  of  this  sort ;  my  mind  was  made  up, 
and  I  was  as  obstinate  then  as  I  am  now. 

In  two  days'  time  I  had  got  every  thing  ready,  and 
had  ordered  the  traveling  carriage  to  the  door  some 
hours  earlier  than  we  had  originally  settled.  We  were 
jovially  threatened  with  "a  parting  cheer"  by  all  our 
English  acquaintances,  and  I  thought  it  desirable  to 
avoid  this  on  my  friend's  account ;  for  he  had  been  more 
excited,  as  it  was,  by  the  preparations  for  the  journey 
than  I  at  all  liked.  Accordingly,  soon  after  sunrise, 
without  a  soul  in  the  street  to  stare  at  us,  we  privately 
left  Naples. 

Xobody  will  wonder,  I  think,  that  I  experienced  some 
difficulty  in  realizing  my  own  position,  and  shrank  in- 
stinctively from  looking  forward  a  single  day  into  the 
future,  when  I  now  found  myself  starting,  in  company 
with  "  Mad  Monkton,"  to  hunt  for  the  body  of  a  dead 
duelist  all  along  the  frontier  line  of  the  Roman  States ! 


CHAPTER  V. 

I  HAD  settled  it  in  my  own  mind  that  we  had  better 
make  the  town  of  Fondi,  close  on  the  frontier,  our  head- 
quarters, to  begin  with,  and  I  had  arranged,  with  the  as- 
sistance of  the  embassy,  that  the  leaden  coffin  should  fol- 


188  THE    QUEEX   OF    HEARTS. 

low  us  so  far,  securely  nailed  up  in  its  packing-case.  Be 
sides  our  passports,  we  were  well  furnished  with  letters 
of  introduction  to  the  local  authorities  at  most  of  the  im- 
portant frontier  towns,  and,  to  crown  all,  we  had  money 
enough  at  our  command  (thanks  to  Monkton's  vast  for- 
tune) to  make  sure  of  the  services  of  any  one  whom  we 
wanted  to  assist  us  all  along  our  line  of  search.  These 
various  resources  insured  us  every  facility  for  action, 
provided  always  that  we  succeeded  in  discovering  the 
body  of  the  dead  duelist.  But,  in  the  very  probable 
event  of  our  failing  to  do  this,  our  future  prospects — 
more  especially  after  the  responsibility  I  had  undertaken 
— were  of  any  thing  but  an  agreeable  nature  to  contem- 
plate. I  confess  I  felt  uneasy,  almost  hopeless,  as  we 
posted,  in  the  dazzling  Italian  sunshine,  along  the  road 
to  Fondi. 

We  made  an  easy  two  days'  journey  of  it ;  for  I  had 
insisted,  on  Monkton's  account,  that  we  should  travel 
slowly. 

On  the  first  day  the  excessive  agitation  of  my  com- 
panion a  little  alarmed  me ;  he  showed,  in  many  ways, 
more  symptoms  of  a  disordered  mind  than  I  had  yet  ob- 
served in  him.  On  the  second  day,  however,  he  seemed 
to  get  accustomed  to  contemplate  calmly  the  new  idea 
of  the  search  on  which  we  were  bent,  and,  except  on  one 
point,  he  was  cheerful  and  composed  enough.  Whenever 
his  dead  uncle  formed  the  subject  of  conversation,  he  still 
persisted — on  the  strength  of  the  old  prophecy,  and  un- 
der the  influence  of  the  apparition  which  he  saw,  or 
thought  he  saw  always — in  asserting  that  the  corpse  of 
Stephen  Monkton,  wherever  it  was,  lay  yet  unburied. 
On  every  other  topic  he  deferred  to  me  with  the  utmost 
readiness  and  docility ;  on  this  he  maintained  his  strange 
opinion  with  an  obstinacy  which  set  reason  and  persua- 
sion alike  at  defiance. 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  189 

On  the  third  day  we  rested  at  Fondi.  The  packing- 
case,  with  the  coffin  in  it,  reached  us,  and  was  deposited 
in  a  safe  place  under  lock  and  key.  We  engaged  some 
mules,  and  found  a  man  to  act  as  guide  who  knew  the 
country  thoroughly.  It  occurred  to  me  that  we  had  bet- 
ter begin  by  confiding  the  real  object  of  our  journey  only 
to  the  most  trustworthy  people  we  could  find  among  the 
better-educated  classes.  For  this  reason  we  followed,  in 
one  respect,  the  example  of  the  fatal  dueling-party,  by 
starting,  early  on  the  morning  of  the  fourth  day,  with 
sketch-books  and  color-boxes,  as  if  we  were  only  artists 
in  search  of  the  picturesque. 

After  traveling  some  hours  in  a  northerly  direction 
within  the  Roman  frontier,  we  halted  to  rest  ourselves 
and  our  mules  at  a  wild  little  village  far  out  of  the  track 
of  tourists  in  general. 

The  only  person  of  the  smallest  importance  in  the 
place  was  the  priest,  and  to  him  I  addressed  my  first  in- 
quiries, leaving  Monkton  to  await  my  return  with  the 
guide.  I  spoke  Italian  quite  fluently,  and  correctly 
enough  for  my  purpose,  and  was  extremely  polite  and 
cautious  in  introducing  my  business,  but,  in  spite  of  all 
the  pains  I  took,  I  only  succeeded  in  frightening  and  be- 
wildering the  poor  priest  more  and  more  with  every 
fresh  word  I  said  to  him.  The  idea  of  a  dueling-party* 
and  a  dead  man  seemed  to  scare  him  out  of  his  senses. 
He  bowed,  fidgeted,  cast  his  eyes  up  to  heaven,  and,  pit- 
eously  shrugging  his  shoulders,  told  me,  with  rapid  Ital- 
ian circumlocution,  that  he  had  not  the  faintest  idea  of 
what  I  was  talking  about.  This  was  my  first  failure.  I 
confess  I  was  weak  enough  to  feel  a  little  dispirited  when 
I  rejoined  Monkton  and  the  guide. 

After  the  heat  of  the  day  was  over  we  resumed  our 
journey. 

About  three  miles  from  the  village,  the  road,  or  rather 
9 


190  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

cart-track,  branched  off  in  two  directions.  The  path  to 
the  right,  our  guide  informed  us,  led  up  among  the  mount- 
ains to  a  convent  about  six  miles  off.  If  we  penetrated 
beyond  the  convent  we  should  soon  reach  the  Neapolitan 
frontier.  The  path  to  the  left  led  far  inward  on  the 
Roman  territory,  and  would  conduct  us  to  a  small  town 
where  we  could  sleep  for  the  night.  Now  the  Roman 
territory  presented  the  first  and  fittest  field  for  our  search, 
and  the  convent  was  always  within  reach,  supposing  we 
returned  to  Fondi  unsuccessful.  Besides,  the  path  to 
the  left  led  over  the  widest  part  of  the  country  we  were 
starting  to  explore,  and  I  was  always  for  vanquishing  the 
greatest  difficulty  first ;  so  we  decided  manfully  on  turn- 
ing to  the  left.  The  expedition  in  which  this  resolution 
involved  us  lasted  a  whole  week,  and  produced  no  results. 
We  discovered  absolutely  nothing,  and  returned  to  our 
head-quarters  at  Fondi  so  completely  baffled  that  we  did 
not  know  whither  to  turn  our  steps  next. 

I  was  made  much  more  uneasy  by  the  effect  of  our  fail- 
ure on  Monkton  than  by  the  failure  itself.  His  resolution 
appeared  to  break  down  altogether  as  soon  as  we  began 
to  retrace  our  steps.  He  became  first  fretful  and  capri- 
cious, then  silent  and  desponding.  Finally,  he  sank  into 
a  lethargy  of  body  and  mind  that  seriously  alarmed  me. 
-On  the  morning  after  our  return  to  Fondi  he  showed  a 
strange  tendency  to  sleep  incessantly,  which  made  me 
suspect  the  existence  of  some  physical  malady  in  his  brain. 
The  whole  day  he  hardly  exchanged  a  word  with  me, 
and  seemed  to  be  never  fairly  awake.  Early  the  next 
morning  I  went  into  his  room,  and  found  him  as  silent 
and  lethargic  as  ever.  His  servant,  who  was  with  us, 
informed  me  that  Alfred  had  once  or  twice  before  exhib- 
ited such  physical  symptoms  of  mental  exhaustion  as  we 
were  now  observing  during  his  father's  lifetime  at  Win- 
cot  Abbey.  This  piece  of  information  made  me  feel  eas- 


THE    QtfEEN    OF    HEARTS.  191 

ier,  and  left  my  mind  free  to  return  to  the  consideration 
of  the  errand  which  had  brought  us  to  Fondi. 

I  resolved  to  occupy  the  time  until  my  companion  got 
better  in  prosecuting  our  search  by  myself.  That  path 
to  the  right  hand  which  led  to  the  convent  had  not  yet 
been  explored.  If  I  set  off  to  trace  it,  I  need  not  be 
away  from  Monkton  more  than  one  night,  and  I  should 
at  least  be  able,  on  my  return,  to  give  him  the  satisfac- 
tion of  knowing  that  one  more  uncertainty  regarding  the 
place  of  the  duel  had  been  cleared  up.  These  considera- 
tions decided  me.  I  left  a  message  for  my  friend  in  case 
he  asked  where  I  had  gone,  and  set  out  once  more  for 
the  village  at  which  we  had  halted  when  starting  on  our 
first  expedition. 

Intending  to  walk  to  the  convent,  I  parted  company 
with  the  guide  and  the  mules  where  the  track  branched 
off,  leaving  them  to  go  back  to  the  village  and  await  my 
return. 

For  the  first  four  miles  the  path  gently  ascended 
through  an  open  country,  then  became  abruptly  much 
steeper,  and  led  me  deeper  and  deeper  among  thickets 
and  endless  woods.  By  the  time  my  watch  informed  me 
that  I  must  have  nearly  walked  my  appointed  distance, 
the  view  was  bounded  on  all  sides  and  the  sky  was  shut 
out  overhead  by  an  impervious  screen  of  leaves  and 
branches.  I  still  followed  my  only  guide,  the  steep  path ; 
and  in  ten  minutes,  emerging  suddenly  on  a  plot  of  tol- 
erably clear  and  level  ground,  I  saw  the  convent  before 
me. 

It  was  a  dark,  /ow,  sinister-looking  place.  Not  a  sign 
of  life  or  movement  was  visible  any  where  about  it. 
Green  stains  streaked  the  once  white  facade  of  the  chap- 
el in  all  directions.  Moss  clustered  thick  in  every  crev- 
ice of  the  heavy  scowling  wall  that  surrounded  the  con- 
vent. Long  lank  weeds  grew  out  of  the  fissures  of  roof 


192  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

and  parapet,  and,  drooping  far  downward,  waved  weari- 
ly in  and  out  of  the  barred  dormitory  windows.  The 
very  cross  opposite  the  entrance-gate,  with  a  shocking 
life-sized  figure  in  wood  nailed  to  it,  was  so  beset  at  the 
base  with  crawling  creatures,  and  looked  so  slimy,  green, 
and  rotten  ah1  the  way  up,  that  I  absolutely  shrank  from  it. 

A  bell-rope  with  a  broken  handle  hung  by  the  gate.  I 
approached  it — hesitated,  I  hardly  knew  why — looked  up 
at  the  convent  again,  and  then  walked  round  to  the  back 
of  the  building,  partly  to  gain  time  to  consider  what  I 
had  better  do  next,  partly  from  an  unaccountable  curios- 
ity that  urged  me,  strangely  to  myself,  to  see  all  I  could 
of  the  outside  of  the  place  before  I  attempted  to  gain  ad- 
mission at  the  gate. 

At  the  back  of  the  convent  I  found  an  out-house,  built 
on  to  the  wall — a  clumsy,  decayed  building,  with  the 
greater  part  of  the  roof  fallen  in,  and  with  a  jagged  hole 
in  one  of  its  sides,  where  in  all  probability  a  window  had 
once  been.  Behind  the  out-house  the  trees  grew  thick- 
er than  ever.  As  I  looked  toward  them  I  could  not  de- 
termine whether  the  ground  beyond  me  rose  or  fell — 
whether  it  was  grassy,  or  earthy,  or  rocky.  I  could  see 
nothing  but  the  all-pervading  leaves,  brambles,  ferns,  and 
long  grass. 

Not  a  sound  broke  the  oppressive  stillness.  No  bird's 
note  rose  from  the  leafy  wilderness  around  me ;  no  voices 
spoke  in  the  convent  garden  behind  the  scowling  wall ; 
no  clock  struck  in  the  chapel-tower ;  no  dog  barked  in 
the  ruined  out-house.  The  dead  silence  deepened  the 
solitude  of  the  place  inexpressibly.  I  began  to  feel  it 
weighing  on  my  spirits — the  more,  because  woods  were 
never  favorite  places  with  me  to  walk  in.  The  soi't  of 
pastoral  happiness  which  poets  often  represent  when 
they  sing  of  life  in  the  woods  never,  to  my  mind,  has 
half  the  charm  of  life  on  the  mountain  or  in  the  plain. 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  193 

When  I  am  in  a  wood,  I  miss  the  boundless  loveliness 
of  the  sky,  and  the  delicious  softness  that  distance  gives 
to  the  earthly  view  beneath.  I  feel  oppressively  the 
change  which  the  free  air  suffers  when  it  gets  imprison- 
ed among  leaves,  and  I  am  always  awed,  rather  than 
pleased,  by  that  mysterious  still  light  which  shines  with 
such  a  strange  dim  lustre  in  deep  places  among  trees. 
It  may  convict  me  of  want  of  taste  and  absence  of  due 
feeling  for  the  marvelous  beauties  of  vegetation,  but  I 
must  frankly  own  that  I  never  penetrate  far  into  a  wood 
without  finding  that  the  getting  out  of  it  again  is  the 
pleasantest  part  of  my  walk — the  getting  out  on  to  the 
barest  down,  the  wildest  hill-side,  the  bleakest  mountain- 
top — the  getting  out  any  where,  so  that  I  can  see  the 
sky  over  me  and  the  view  before  me  as  far  as  my  eye 
can  reach. 

After  such  a  confession  as  I  have  now  made,  it  will  ap- 
pear surprising  to  no  one  that  I  should  have  felt  the 
strongest  possible  inclination,  while  I  stood  by  the  ruin- 
ed out-house,  to  retrace  my  steps  at  once,  and  make  the 
best  of  my  way  out  of  the  wood.  I  had,  indeed,  actual- 
ly turned  to  depart,  when  the  remembrance  of  the  er- 
rand which  had  brought  me  to  the  convent  suddenly 
stayed  my  feet.  It  seemed  doubtful  whether  I  should  be 
admitted  into  the  building  if  I  rang  the  bell;  and  more 
than  doubtful,  if  I  were  let  in,  whether  the  inhabitants 
would  be  able  to  afford  me  any  clew  to  the  information 
of  which  I  was  in  search.  However,  it  was  my  duty  to 
JVIonkton  to  leave  no  means  of  helping  him  in  his  despe- 
rate object  untried  ;  so  I  resolved  to  go  round  to  the  front 
of  the  convent  again,  and  ring  at  the  gate-bell  at  all  haz- 
ards. 

By  the  merest  chance  I  looked  up  as  I  passed  the  side 
of  the  out-house  where  the  jagged  hole  was,  and  noticed 
that  it  was  pierced  rather  high  in  the  wall. 


194  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

As  I  stopped  to  observe  this,  the  closeness  of  the  at- 
mosphere in  the  wood  seemed  to  be  affecting  me  more 
unpleasantly  than  ever. 

I  waited  a  minute  and  untied  my  cravat. 

Closeness?  surely  it  was  something  more  than  that. 
The  air  was  even  more  distasteful  to  my  nostrils  than  to 
my  lungs.  There  was  some  faint,  indescribable  smell 
loading  it — some  smell  of  which  I  had  never  had  any 
previous  experience — some  smell  which  I  thought  (now 
that  my  attention  was  directed  to  it)  grew  more  and 
more  certainly  traceable  to  its  source  the  nearer  I  ad- 
vanced to  the  out-house. 

By  the  time  I  had  tried  the  experiment  two  or  three 
times,  and  had  made  myself  sure  of  this  fact,  my  curiosi- 
ty became  excited.  There  were  plenty  of  fragments  of 
stone  and  brick  lying  about  me.  I  gathered  some  of 
them  together,  and  piled  them  iip  below  the  hole,  then 
mounted  to  the  top,  and,  feeling  rather  ashamed  of  what 
I  was  doing,  peeped  into  the  out-house. 

The  sight  of  horror  that  met  my  eyes  the  instant  I 
looked  through  the  hole  is  as  present  to  my  memory 
now  as  if  I  had  beheld  it  yesterday.  I  can  hardly  write 
of  it  at  this  distance  of  time  without  a  thrill  of  the  old 
terror  running  through  me  again  to  the  heart. 

The  first  impression  conveyed  to  me,  as  I  looked  in, 
was  of  a  long  recumbent  object,  tinged  with  a  lightish 
blue  color  all  over,  extended  on  trestles,  and  bearing  a 
certain  hideous,  half-formed  resemblance  to  the  human 
face  and  figure.  I  looked  again,  and  felt  certain  of  it. 
There  were  the  prominences  of  the  forehead,  nose,  and 
chin,  dimly  shown  as  under  a  veil — there,  the  round  out- 
line of  the  chest  and  the  hollow  below  it — there,  the 
points  of  the  knees,  and  the  stiff,  ghastly,  upturned  feet. 
I  looked  again,  yet  more  attentively.  My  eyes  got  ac- 
customed to  the  dim  light  streaming  in  through  the 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  195 

broken  roof,  and  I  satisfied  myself,  judging  by  the  great 
length  of  the  body  from  head  to  foot,  that  I  was  looking 
at  the  corpse  of  a  man — a  corpse  that  had  apparently 
once  had  a  sheet  spread  over  it,  and  that  had  lain  rotting 
on  the  trestles  under  the  open  sky  long  enough  for  the 
linen  to  take  the  livid,  light-blue  tinge  of  mildew  and  de- 
cay which  now  covered  it. 

How  long  I  remained  with  my  eyes  fixed  on  that  dread 
sight  of  death,  on  that  tombless,  terrible  wreck  of  human- 
ity, poisoning  the  still  air,  and  seeming  even  to  stain  the 
faint  descending  light  that  disclosed  it,  I  know  not.  I 
remember  a  dull,  distant  sound  among  the  trees,  as  if  the 
breeze  were  rising — the  slow  creeping  on  of  the  sound 
to  near  the  place  where  I  stood — the  noiseless  whirling 
fall  of  a  dead  leaf  on  the  corpse  below  me,  through  the 
gap  in  the  out-house  roof — and  the  effect  of  awakening 
my  energies,  of  relaxing  the  heavy  strain  on  my  mind, 
which  even  the  slight  change  wrought  in  the  scene  I  be- 
held by  the  falling  leaf  produced  in  me  immediately.  I 
descended  to  the  ground,  and,  sitting  down  on  the  heap 
of  stones,  wiped  away  the  thick  perspiration  which  cov- 
ered my  face,  and  which  I  now  became  aware  of  for  the 
first  time.  It  was  something  more  than  the  hideous 
spectacle  unexpectedly  offered  to  my  eyes  which  had 
shaken  my  nerves  as  I  felt  that  they  were  shaken  now. 
Monkton's  prediction  that,  if  we  succeeded  in  discovering 
his  uncle's  body,  we  should  find  it  unburied,  recurred  to 
me  the  instant  I  saw  the  trestles  and  their  ghastly  bur- 
den. I  felt  assured  on  the  instant  that  I  had  found  the 
dead  man — the  old  prophecy  recurred  to  my  memory — 
a  strange  yearning  sorrow,  a  vague  foreboding  of  ill,  an 
inexplicable  terror,  as  I  thought  of  the  poor  lad  who  was 
awaiting  my  return  in  the  distant  town,  struck  through 
me  with  a  chill  of  superstitious  dread,  robbed  me  of  my 
judgment  and  resolution,  and  left  me  when  I  had  at  last 


19G  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

recovered  myself,  weak  and  dizzy,  as  if  I  had  just  suffer- 
ed under  some  pang  of  overpowering  physical  pain. 

I  hastened  round  to  the  convent  gate,  and  rang  impa- 
tiently at  the  bell — waited  a  little  while,  and  rang  again 
— then  heard  footsteps. 

In  the  middle  of  the  gate,  just  opposite  my  face,  there 
was  a  small  sliding  panel,  not  more  than  a  few  inches 
long ;  this  was  presently  pushed  aside  from  within.  I 
saw,  through  a  bit  of  iron  grating,  two  dull,  light  gray 
eyes  staring  vacantly  at  me,  and  heard  a  feeble  husky 
voice  saying, 

"  What  may  you  please  to  want  ?" 

"I  am  a  traveler — "  I  began. 

"  We  live  in  a  miserable  place.  We  have  nothing  to 
show  travelers  here." 

"  I  don't  come  to  see  any  thing.  I  have  an  important 
question  to  ask,  which  I  believe  some  one  in  this  convent 
wiii  be  able  to  answer.  If  you  are  not  willing  to  let  me 
in,  at  least  come  out  and  speak  to  me  here." 

"  Are  you  alone  ?" 

"  Quite  alone." 

"  Are  there  no  women  with  you  ?" 

"  None." 

The  gate  was  slowly  unbarred,  and  an  old  Capuchin, 
very  infirm,  very  suspicious,  and  very  dirty,  stood  before 
me.  I  was  far  too  excited  and  impatient  to  waste  any 
time  in  prefatory  phrases ;  so,  telling  the  monk  at  once 
how  I  had  looked  through  the  hole  in  the  out-house,  and 
what  I  had  seen  inside,  I  asked  him,  in  plain  terms,  who 
the  man  had  been  whose  corpse  I  had  beheld,  and  why 
the  body  was  left  unburied  ? 

The  old  Capuchin  listened  to  me  with  watery  eyes 
that  twinkled  suspiciously.  He  had  a  battered  tin  snuff- 
box in  his  hand,  and  his  finger  and  thumb  slowly  chased 
a  few  scattered  grains  of  snuff  round  and  round  the  in- 


THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS.  197 

side  ">f  the  box  all  the  time  I  was  speaking.  When  I  had 
done,  he  shook  his  head  and  said,  "  That  was  certainly 
an  ugly  sight  in  their  out-house ;  one  of  the  ugliest 
sights,  he  felt  sure,  that  ever  I  had  seen  in  all  my  life !" 

"  I  don't  want  to  talk  of  the  sight,"  I  rejoined,  impa- 
tiently ;  "  I  want  to  know  who  the  man  was,  how  he 
died,  and  why  he  is  not  decently  buried.  Can  you  tell 
me  ?" 

The  monk's  finger  and  thumb  having  captured  three 
or  four  grains  of  snuff  at  last,  he  slowly  drew  them  into 
his  nostrils,  holding  the  box  open  under  his  nose  the 
while,  to  prevent  the  possibility  of  wasting  even  one 
grain,  sniffed  once  or  twice  luxuriously — closed  the  box 
— then  looked  at  me  again  with  his  eyes  watering  and 
twinkling  more  suspiciously  than  before. 

"  Yes,"  said  the  monk,  "  that's  an  ugly  sight  in  our 
out-house — a  very  ugly  sight,  certainly !" 

I  never  had  more  difficulty  in  keeping  my  temper  in 
my  life  than  at  that  moment.  I  succeeded,  however,  in 
repressing  a  very  disrespectful  expression  on  the  subject 
of  monks  in  general,  which  was  on  the  tip  of  my  tongue, 
and  made  another  attempt  to  conquer  the  old  man's  ex- 
asperating reserve.  '  Fortunately  for  my  chances  of  suc- 
ceeding with  him,  I  was  a  snuff-taker  myself,  and  I  had 
a  box  full  of  excellent  English  snuff  in  my  pocket,  which 
I  now  produced  as  a  bribe.  It  was  my  last  resource. 

"  I  thought  your  box  seemed  empty  just  now,"  said  I ; 
"  will  you  try  a  pinch  out  of  mine  ?" 

The  offer  was  accepted  with  an  almost  youthful  alacri- 
ty of  gesture.  The  Capuchin  took  the  largest  pinch  I 
ever  saw  held  between  any  man's  finger  and  thumb — in- 
haled it  slowly  without  spilling  a  single  grain — half 
closed  his  eyes  —  and,  wagging  his  head  gently,  patted 
me  paternally  on  the  back. 

"  Oh,  my  son,"  said  the  monk,  "  what  delectable  snuff! 
9* 


198  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

Oh,  my  son  and  amiable  traveler,  give  the  spiritual  father 
who  loves  you  yet  another  tiny,  tiny  pinch  !" 

"Let  me  fill  your  box  for  you.  I  shall  have  plenty 
left  for  myself." 

The  battered  tin  snuff-box  was  given  to  me  before  I 
had  done  speaking ;  the  paternal  hand  patted  my  back 
more  approvingly  than  ever;  the  feeble,  husky  voice 
grew  glib  and  eloquent  in  my  praise.  I  had  evidently 
found  out  the  weak  side  of  the  old  Capuchin,  and,  on  re- 
turning him  his  box,  I  took  instant  advantage  of  the  dis- 
covery. 

"Excuse  my  troubling  you  on  the  subject  again,"  I 
said,  "  but  I  have  particular  reasons  for  wanting  to  hear 
all  that  you  can  tell  me  in  explanation  of  that  horrible 
sight  in  the  out-house." 

"  Come  in,"  answered  the  monk. 

He  drew  me  inside  the  gate,  closed  it,  and  then  lead- 
ing the  way  across  a  grass-grown  court -yard,  looking  out 
on  a  weedy  kitchen-garden,  showed  me  into  a  long  room 
with  a  low  ceiling,  a  dirty  dresser,  a  few  rudely-carved 
stall  seats,  and  one  or  two  grim,  mildewed  pictures  for 
ornaments.  This  was  the  sacristy. 

"  There's  nobody  here,  and  it's  nice  and  cool,"  said  the 
old  Capuchin.  It  was  so  damp  that  I  actually  shivered. 
"  Would  you  like  to  see  the  church  ?"  said  the  monk ; 
"  a  jewel  of  a  church,  if  we  could  keep  it  in  repair ;  but 
we  can't.  Ah !  malediction  and  misery,  we  are  too  poor 
to  keep  our  church  in  repair!" 

Here  he  shook  his  head,  and  began  fumbling  with  a 
large  bunch  of  keys. 

"  Never  mind  the  church  now,"  said  I.  "  Can  you,  or 
can  you  not,  tell  me  what  I  want  to  know  ?" 

"  Every  thing,  from  beginning  to  end — absolutely  ev- 
ery thing.  Why,  I  answered  the  gate-bell — I  always  an- 
swer the  gate-bell  here,"  said  the  Capuchin. 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  199 

"  What,  in  Heaven's  name,  has  the  gate-bell  to  do  with 
the  unburied  corpse  in  your  house  ?" 

"  Listen,  son  of  mine,  and  you  shall  know.  Some  time 
ago — some  months — ah  !  me,  I'm  old  ;  I've  lost  my  mem- 
ory ;  I  don't  know  how  many  months — ah !  miserable 
me,  what  a  very  old,  old  monk  I  am !"  Here  he  com- 
forted himself  with  another  pinch  of  snuff. 

"  Never  mind  the  exact  time,"  said  I.  "  I  don't  care 
about  that." 

"Good,"  said  the  Capuchin.  "Now  I  can  go  on. 
Well,  let  us  say  it  is  some  months  ago — we  in  this  con- 
vent are  all  at  breakfast — wretched,  wretched  breakfasts, 
son  of  mine,  in  this  convent ! — we  are  at  breakfast,  and 
we  hear  bang!  bang!  twice  over.  'Guns,'  says  I. 
'What  are  they  shooting  for?'  says  Brother  Jeremy. 
'  Game,'  says  Brother  Vincent.  '  Aha !  game,'  says 
Brother  Jeremy.  '  If  I  hear  more,  I  shall  send  out  and 
discover  what  it  means,'  says  the  father  superior.  We 
hear  no  more,  and  we  go  on  with  our  wretched  break- 
fasts." 

"  Where  did  the  report  of  fire-arms  come  from  ?"  I  in- 
quired. 

"  From  down  below — beyond  the  big  trees  at  the  back 
of  the  convent,  where  there's  some  clear  ground — nice 
ground,  if  it  wasn't  for  the  pools  and  puddles.  But,  ah ! 
misery,  how  damp  we  are  in  these  parts !  how  very,  very 
damp !" 

"  Well,  what  happened  after  the  report  of  fire-arms  ?" 

"  You  shall  hear.  We  are  still  at  breakfast,  all  silent — 
for  what  have  we  to  talk  about  here  ?  What  have  we 
but  our  devotions,  our  kitchen-garden,  and  our  wretched, 
wretched  bits  of  breakfasts  and  dinners  ?  I  say  we  are 
all  silent,  when  there  comes  suddenly  such  a  ring  at  the 
bell  as  never  was  heard  before — a  very  devil  of  a  ring — 
a  ring  that  caught  us  all  with  our  bits — our  wretched, 


200  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

wretched  bits ! — in  our  mouths,  and  stopped  us  beiore 
we  could  swallow  them.  '  Go,  brother  of  mine,'  says 
the  father  superior  to  me,  '  go ;  it  is  your  duty — go  to 
the  gate.'  I  am  brave — a  very  lion  of  a  Capuchin.  I 
slip  out  on  tiptoe — I  wait — I  listen — I  pull  back  our  lit- 
tle shutter  in  the  gate — I  wait,  I  listen  again — I  peep 
through  the  hole — nothing,  absolutely  nothing  that  I  can 
see.  I  am  brave — I  am  not  to  be  daunted.  What  do  I 
do  next  ?  I  open  the  gate.  Ah !  sacred  Mother  of 
Heaven,  what  do  I  behold  lying  all  along  our  threshold  ? 
A  man — dead  ! — a  big  man  ;  bigger  than  you,  bigger 
than  me,  bigger  than  any  body  in  this  convent — button- 
ed up  tight  in  a  fine  coat,  with  black  eyes,  staring,  star- 
ing up  at  the  sky,  and  blood  soaking  through  and  through 
the  front  of  his  shirt.  What  do  I  do  ?  1  scream  once — 
I  scream  twice — and  run  back  to  the  father  superior !" 

All  the  particulars  of  the  fatal  duel  which  I  had  glean- 
ed from  the  French  newspaper  in  Monkton's  room  at 
Xaples  recurred  vividly  to  my  memory.  The  suspicion 
that  I  had  felt  when  I  looked  into  the  out-house  became 
a  certainty  as  I  listened  to  the  old  monk's  last  words. 

"  So  far  I  understand,"  said  I.  "  The  corpse  I  have 
just  seen  in  the  out-house  is  the  corpse  of  the  man  whom 
you  found  dead  outside  your  gate.  Now  tell  me  why 
you  have  not  given  the  remains  decent  burial." 

"  Wait — wait — wait,"  answered  the  Capuchin.  "  The 
father  superior  hears  me  scream,  and  comes  out ;  we  al) 
run  together  to  the  gate ;  we  lift  up  the  big  man,  and 
look  at  him  close.  Dead !  dead  as  this  (smacking  the 
dresser  with  his  hand).  We  look  again,  and  see  a  bit  of 
paper  pinned  to  the  collar  of  his  coat.  Aha !  son  of 
mine,  you  start  at  that.  I  thought  I  should  make  you 
start  at  last." 

I  had  started  indeed.  That  paper  was  doubtless  the 
leaf  mentioned  in  the  second's  unfinished  narrative  as 


THE  QUEEN'  OF  HEARTS.  201 

having  been  torn  out  of  his  pocket-book,  and  inscribed 
with  the  statement  of  how  the  dead  man  had  lost  his 
life.  If  proof  positive  were  wanted  to  identify  the  dead 
body,  here  was  such  proof  found. 

"  What  do  you  think  was  written  on  the  bit  of  paper  ?" 
continued  the  Capuchin.  "  We  read  and  shudder.  This 
dead  man  has  been  killed  in  a  duel — he,  the  desperate, 
the  miserable,  has  died  in  the  commission  of  mortal  sin  ; 
and  the  men  who  saw  the  killing  of  him  ask  us  Capuchins, 
holy  men,  servants  of  Heaven,  children  of  our  lord  the, 
Pope — they  ask  its  to  give  him  burial !  Oh  !  but  we  are 
outraged  when  we  read  that ;  we  groan,  we  wring  our 
hands,  we  turn  away,  we  tear  our  beards,  we — " 

"Wait  one  moment,"  said  I,  seeing  that  the  old  man 
was  heating  himself  with  his  narrative,  and  was  likely, 
unless  I  stopped  him,  to  talk  more  and  more  fluently  to 
less  and  less  purpose — "  wait  a  moment.  Have  you  pre- 
served the  paper  that  was  pinned  to  the  dead  man's  coat ; 
and  can  I  look  at  it  ?" 

The  Capuchin  seemed  on  the  point  of  giving  me  an 
answer,  when  he  suddenly  checked  himself.  I  saw  his 
eyes  wander  away  from  my  face,  and  at  the  same  mo- 
ment heard  a  door  softly  opened  and  closed  again  behind 
me. 

Looking  round  immediately,  I  observed  another  monk 
in  the  sacristy — a  tall,  lean,  black-bearded  man,  in  whose 
presence  my  old  friend  with  the  snuff-box  suddenly  be- 
came quite  decorous  and  devotional  to  look  at.  I  sus- 
pected I  was  in  the  presence  of  the  father  superior,  and  I 
found  that  I  was  right  the  moment  he  addressed  me. 

"  I  am  the  father  superior  of  this  convent,"  he  said,  in 
quiet,  clear  tones,  and  looking  me  straight  in  the  face 
while  he  spoke,  with  coldly  attentive  eyes.  "  I  have 
heard  the  latter  part  of  your  conversation,  and  I  wish  to 
know  why  you  are  so  particularly  anxious  to  see  the 


202  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

piece  of  paper  that  was  pinned  to  the  dead  man's 
coat  ?" 

The  coolness  with  which  he  avowed  that  he  had  been 
listening,  and  the  quietly  imperative  manner  in  which  he 
put  his  concluding  question,  perplexed  and  startled  me. 
I  hardly  knew  at  first  what  tone  I  ought  to  take  in  an- 
swering him.  He  observed  my  hesitation,  and  attribu- 
ting it  to  the  wrong  cause,  signed  to  the  old  Capuchin 
to  retire.  Humbly  stroking  his  long  gray  beard,  and 
furtively  consoling  himself  Avith  a  private  pinch  of  the 
"  delectable  snuff,"  my  venerable  friend  shuffled  out  of 
the  room,  making  a  profound  obeisance  at  the  door  just 
before  he  disappeared. 

"  Now,"  said  the  father  superior,  as  coldly  as  ever,  "  I 
am  waiting,  sir,  for  your  reply." 

"  You  shall  have  it  in  the  fewest  possible  words,"  said 
I,  answering  him  in  his  own  tone.  "  I  find,  to  my  disgust 
and  horror,  that  there  is  an  unburied  corpse  in  an  out- 
house attached  to  your  convent.  I  believe  that  corpse 
to  be  the  body  of  an  English  gentleman  of  rank  and  for- 
tune, who  was  killed  in  a  duel.  I  have  come  into  this 
neighborhood,  with  the  nephew  and  only  relation  of  the 
slain  man,  for  the  express  purpose  of  recovering  his  re- 
mains ;  and  I  wish  to  see  the  paper  found  on  the  body,  be- 
cause I  believe  that  paper  will  identify  it  to  the  satisfaction 
of  the  relative  to  whom  I  have  referred.  Do  you  find  my 
reply  sufficiently  straightforward  ?  And  do  you  mean  to 
give  me  permission  to  look  at  the  paper  ?" 

"  I  am  satisfied  with  your  reply,  and  see  no  reason  for 
refusing  you  a  sight  of  the  paper,"  said  the  father  supe- 
rior ;  "  but  I  have  something  to  say  first.  In  speaking 
of  the  impression  produced  on  you  by  beholding  the 
corpse,  you  used  the  words  '  disgust'  and  '  horror.'  This 
license  of  expression  in  relation  to  what  you  have  seen  in 
the  precincts  of  a  convent  proves  to  me  that  you  are  out 


THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS.  203 

of  the  pale  of  the  Holy  Catholic  Church.  You  have  no 
right,  therefore,  to  expect  any  explanation  ;  but  I  will 
give  you  one,  nevertheless,  as  a  favor.  The  slain  man 
died,  unabsolved,  in  the  commission  of  mortal  sin.  We 
infer  so  much  from  the  paper  which  we  found  on  his 
body ;  and  we  know,  by  the  evidence  of  our  own  eyes 
and  ears,  that  he  was  killed  on  the  territories  of  the 
Church,  and  in  the  act  of  committing  direct  violation  of 
those  special  laws  against  the  crime  of  dueling,  the  strict 
enforcement  of  which  the  holy  father  himself  has  urged 
on  the  faithful  throughout  his  dominions  by  letters  signed 
with  his  own  hand.  Inside  this  convent  the  ground  is 
consecrated,  and  we  Catholics  are  not  accustomed  to 
bury  the  outlaws  of  our  religion,  the  enemies  of  our  holy 
father,  and  the  violators  of  our  most  sacred  laws  in  con- 
secrated ground.  Outside  this  convent  we  have  no  rights 
and  no  power ;  and,  if  we  had  both,  we  should  remember 
that  we  are  monks,  not  grave-diggers,  and  that  the  only 
burial  with  which  we  can  have  any  concern  is  burial  with 
the  prayers  of  the  Church.  That  is  all  the  explanation  I 
think  it  necessary  to  give.  Wait  for  me  here,  and  you 
shall  see  the  paper."  With  those  woi-ds  the-  father  supe- 
rior left  the  room  as  quietly  as  he  had  entered  it. 

I  had  hardly  time  to  think  over  this  bitter  and  ungra- 
cious explanation,  and  to  feel  a  little  piqued  by  the  lan- 
guage and  manner  of  the  person  who  had  given  it  to  me, 
before  the  father  superior  returned  with  the  paper  in  his 
hand.  He  placed  it  before  me  on  the  dresser,  and  I  read, 
hurriedly  traced  in  pencil,  the  following  lines  : 

"  This  paper  is  attached  to  the  body  of  the  late  Mr. 
Stephen  Monkton,  an  Englishman  of  distinction.  He  has 
been  shot  in  a  duel,  conducted  with  perfect  gallantry  and 
honor  on  both  sides.  His  body  is  placed  at  the  door  of 
this  convent,  to  receive  burial  at  the  hands  of  its  inmates, 
the  survivors  of  the  encounter  being  obliged  to  separate 


204  THE    QUEEIS    OF    HEARTS. 

and  secure  their  safety  by  immediate  flight.  I,  the  sec- 
ond of  the  slain  man,  and  the  writer  of  this  explanation, 
certify,  on  my  word  of  honor  as  a  gentleman,  that  the 
shot  which  killed  my  principal  on  the  instant  was  fired 
fairly,  in  the  strictest  accordance  with  the  rules  laid 
down  beforehand  for  the  conduct  of  the  duel. 

"  (Signed),  F." 

"F."  I  recognized  easily  enough  as  the  initial  letter 
of  Monsieur  Foulon's  name,  the  second  of  Mr.  Monkton, 
who  had  died  of  consumption  at  Paris. 

The  discovery  and  the  identification  were  now  com- 
plete. Nothing  remained  but  to  break  the  news  to  Al- 
fred, and  to  get  permission  to  remove  the  remains  in  the 
out-house.  I  began  almost  to  doubt  the  evidence  of  my 
own  senses  when  I  reflected  that  the  apparently  imprac- 
ticable object  with  which  we  had  left  Naples  was  al- 
ready, by  the  merest  chance,  virtually  accomplished. 

"  The  evidence  of  the  paper  is  decisive,"  said  I,  hand- 
ing it  back.  "  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  remains 
in  the  out-house  are  the  remains  of  which  we  have  been 
in  search.  May  I  inquire  if  any  obstacles  will  be  thrown 
in  our  way  should  the  late  Mr.  Monkton' s  nephew  wish 
to  remove  his  uncle's  body  to  the  family  burial-place  in 
England  ?" 

"  Where  is  this  nephew  ?"  asked  the  father  superior. 

"He  is  now  awaiting  my  return  at  the  town  of 
Fondi." 

"  Is  he  in  a  position  to  prove  his  relationship  ?" 

"  Certainly ;  lie  has  papers  with  him  which  will  place 
it  beyond  a  doubt." 

"  Let  him  satisfy  the  civil  authorities  of  his  claim,  and  he 
need  expect  no  obstacle  to  his  wishes  from  any  one  here." 

I  was  in  no  humor  for  talking  a  moment  longer  with 
my  sour-tempered  companion  than  I  could  help.  The 
day  was  wearing  on  fast ;  and,  whether  night  overtook 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  205 

me  or  not,  I  was  resolved  never  to  stop  on  ray  return 
till  I  got  back  to  Fondi.  Accordingly,  after  telling  the 
father  superior  that  he  might  expect  to  hear  from  me 
again  immediately,  I  made  my  bow,  and  hastened  out  of 
the  sacristy. 

At  the  convent  gate  stood  my  old  friend  with  the  tin 
snuff-box,  waiting  to  let  me  out. 

"  Bless  you,  my  son,"  said  the  venerable  recluse,  giv- 
ing me  a  farewell  pat  on  the  shoulder,  "  come  back  soon 
to  your  spiritual  father  who  loves  you,  and  amiably  fa- 
vor him  with  another  tiny,  tiny  pinch  of  the  delectable 
snuff." 


CHAPTER  VI. 

I  RETURNED  at  the  top  of  my  speed  to  the  village 
where  I  had  left  the  mules,  had  the  animals  saddled  im- 
mediately, and  succeeded  in  getting  back  to  Fondi  a  lit- 
tle before  sunset. 

While  ascending  the  stairs  of  our  hotel,  I  suffered  un- 
der the  most  painful  uncertainty  as  to  how  I  should  best 
communicate  the  news  of  rny  discovery  to  Alfred.  If  I 
could  not  succeed  in  preparing  him  properly  for  my  tid- 
ings, the  results,  with  such  an  organization  as  his,  might 
be  fatal.  On  opening  the  door  of  his  room,  I  felt  by  no 
means  sure  of  myself;  and  when  I  confronted  him,  his 
manner  of  receiving  me  took  me  so  much  by  surprise 
that,  for  a  moment  or  tw o,  I  lost  my  self-possession  alto- 
gether. 

Every  trace  of  the  lethargy  in  which  he  was  sunk 
when  I  had  last  seen  him  had  disappeared.  His  eyes 
were  bright,  his  cheeks  deeply  flushed.  As  I  entered, 
he  started  up,  and  refused  my  offered  hand. 

"  You  have  not  treated  me  like  a  friend,"  he  said,  pas- 


206  THE   QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

sionately;  "you  had  no  right  to  continue  the  search  un- 
less I  searched  with  you — you  had  no  right  to  leave  me 
here  alone.  I  was  wrong  to  trust  you ;  you  are  no  bet- 
ter than  all  the  rest  of  them." 

I  had  by  this  time  recovered  a  little  from  my  first  as- 
tonishment, and  was  able,  to  reply  before  he  could  say 
any  thing  more.  It  was  quite  useless,  in  his  present 
state,  to  reason  with  him  or  to  defend  myself.  I  de- 
termined to  risk  every  thing,  and  break  my  news  to  him 
at  once. 

"  You  will  treat  me  more  justly,  Monkton,  when  you 
know  that  I  have  been  doing  you  good  service  during 
my  absence,"  I  said.  "Unless  I  am  greatly  mistaken, 
the  object  for  which  we  have  left  Naples  may  be  nearer 
attainment  by  both  of  us  than — " 

The  flush  left  his  cheeks  almost  in  an  instant.  Some 
expression  in  my  face,  or  some  tone  in  my  voice,  of  which 
I  was  not  conscious,  had  revealed  to  his  nervously-quick- 
ened perception  more  than  I  had  intended  that  he  should 
know  at  first.  His  eyes  fixed  themselves  intently  on 
mine ;  his  hand  grasped  my  arm ;  and  he  said  to  me  in 
an  eager  whisper, 

"  Tell  me  the  truth  at  once.     Have  you  found  him  ?" 

It  was  too  late  to  hesitate.  I  answered  in  the  affirm- 
ative. 

"  Buried  or  unburied  ?" 

His  voice  rose  abruptly  as  he  put  the  question,  and  his 
unoccupied  hand  fastened  on  my  other  arm, 

"  Unburied." 

I  had  hardly  uttered  the  word  before  the  blood  flew 
back  into  his  cheeks ;  his  eyes  flashed  again  as  they 
looked  into  mine,  and  he  burst  into  a  fit  of  triumphant 
laughter,  which  shocked  and  startled  me  inexpressibly. 

"  What  did  I  tell  you  ?  What  do  you  say  to  the  old 
prophecy  now  ?"  he  cried,  dropping  his  hold  on  my 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  207 

arms,  and  pacing  backward  and  forward  in  the  room. 
"  Own  you  were  wrong.  Own  it,  as  all  Naples  shall 
own  it,  when  once  I  have  got  him  safe  in  his  coffin  !" 

His  laughter  grew  more  and  more  violent.  I  tried  to 
quiet  him  in  vain.  His  servant  and  the  landlord  of  the 
inn  entered,  the  room,  but  they  only  added  fuel  to  the 
fire,  and  I  made  them  go  out  again.  As  I  shut  the  door 
on  them,  I  observed  lying  on  a  table  near  at  hand  the 
packet  of  letters  from  Miss  Elmslie,  which  my  unhappy 
friend  preserved  with  such  care,  and  read  and  re-read 
with  such  unfailing  devotion.  Looking  toward  me  just 
when  I  passed  by  the  table,  the  letters  caught  his  eye. 
The  new  hope  for  the  future,  in  connection  with  the 
writer  of  them,  which  my  news  was  already  awakening 
in  his  heart,  seemed  to  overwhelm  him  in  an  instant  at 
sight  of  the  treasured  memorials  that  reminded  him  of 
his  betrothed  wife.  His  laughter  ceased,  his  face  changed, 
he  ran  to  the  table,  caught  the  letters  up  in  his  hand, 
looked  from  them  to  me  for  one  moment  with  an  altered 
expression  which  went  to  my  heart,  then  sank  down  on 
his  knees  at  the  table,  laid  his  face  on  the  letters,  and 
burst  into  tears.  I  let  the  new  emotion  have  its  way 
uninterruptedly,  and  quitted  the  room  without  saying  a 
word.  When  I  returned  after  a  lapse  of  some  little  time, 
I  found  him  sitting  quietly  in  his  chair,  reading  one  of 
the  letters  from  the  packet  which  rested  on  his  knee. 

His  look  was  kindness  itself;  his  gesture  almost  wom- 
anly in  its  gentleness  as  he  rose  to  meet  me,  and  anxious- 
ly held  out  his  hand. 

He  was  quite  calm  enough  now  to  hear  in  detail  all 
that  I  had  to  tell  him.  I  suppressed  nothing  but  the 
particulars  of  the  state  in  which  I  had  found  the  corpse. 
T  assumed  no  right  of  direction  as  to  the  share  he  was  to 
take  in  our  future  proceedings,  with  the  exception  of  in- 
sisting beforehand  that  he  should  leave  the  absolute  su- 


208  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

perintendence  of  the  removal  of  the  body  to  me,  and 
that  he  should  be  satisfied  with  a  sight  of  M.  Foulon's 
paper,  after  receiving  my  assurance  that  the  remains 
placed  in  the  coffin  were  really  and  truly  the  remains  of 
which  we  had  been  in  search. 

"  Your  nerves  are  not  so  strong  as  mine,"  I  said,  by 
way  of  apology  for  my  apparent  dictation,  "  and  for  that 
reason  I  must  beg  leave  to  assume  the 'leadership  in  all 
that  we  have  now  to  do,  until  I  see  the  leaden  coffin 
soldered  down  and  safe  in  your  possession.  After  that 
I  shall  resign  all  my  functions  to  you." 

"I  want  words  to  thank  you  for  your  kindness,"  he 
answered.  "  No  brother  could  have  borne  with  me  more 
affectionately,  or  helped  me  more  patiently  than  you." 

He  stopped  and  grew  thoughtful,  then  occupied  him- 
self in  tying  up  slowly  and  carefully  the  packet  of  Miss 
Elmslie's  letters,  and  then  looked  suddenly  toward  the 
vacant  wall  behind  me  with  that  strange  expression  the 
meaning  of  which  I  knew  so  well.  Since  we  had  left 
Naples  I  had  purposely  avoided  exciting  him  by  talking 
on  the  useless  and  shocking  subject  of  the  apparition  by 
which  he  believed  himself  to  be  perpetually  followed. 
Just  now,  however,  he  seemed  so  calm  and  collected — 
so  little  likely  to  be  violently  agitated  by  any  allusion  to 
the  dangerous  topic,  that  I  ventured  to  speak  out  boldly. 

"  Does  the  phantom  still  appear  to  you,"  I  asked,  "  as 
it  appeared  at  Naples  ?" 

He  looked  at  me  and  smiled. 

"  Did  I  not  tell  you  that  it  followed  me  every  where  ?" 
His  eyes  wandered  back  again  to  the  vacant  space,  and 
he  went  on  speaking  in  that  direction  as  if  he  had  been 
continuing  the  conversation  with  some  third  person  in 
the  room.  "  We  shall  part,"  he  said,  slowly  and  softly, 
"  when  the  empty  place  is  filled  in  "VVincot  vault.  Then 
I  shall  stand  with  Ada  before  the  altar  in  the  Abbey 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  209 

chapel,  and  when  my  eyes  meet  hers  they  will  see  the 
tortured  face  no  more." 

Saying  this,  he  leaned  his  head  on  his  hand,  sighed, 
and  began  repeating  softly  to  himself  the  lines  of  the  old 
prophecy : 

When  in  Wincat  vault  a  place 

Waits  for  one  of  Monkton's  race — 

When  that  one  forlorn  shall  lie 

Graveless  under  open  sky, 

Beggared  of  six  feet  of  earth, 

Though  lord  of  acres  from  his  birth — 

That  shall  he  a  certain  sign 

Of  the  end  of  Monkton's  line. 

Dwindling  ever  faster,  faster, 

Dwindling  to  the  last-left  master ; 

From  mortal  ken,  from  light  of  day, 

Monkton's  race  shall  pass  away. 

Fancying  that  he  pronounced  the  last  lines  a  little  in- 
coherently, I  tried  to  make  him  change  the  subject.  He 
took  no  notice  of  what  I  said,  and  went  on  talking  to 
himself. 

"  Monkton's  race  shall  pass  away,"  he  repeated,  "  but 
not  with  me.  The  fatality  hangs  over  my  head  no 
longer.  I  shall  bury  the  unburied  dead ;  I  shall  fill  the 
vacant  place  in  Wincot  vault ;  and  then — then  the  new 
life,  the  life  with  Ada !"  That  name  seemed  to  recall 
him  to  himself.  He  drew  his  traveling  desk  toward  him, 
placed  the  packet  of  letters  in  it,  and  then  took  out  a 
sheet  of  paper.  "I  am  going  to  write  to  Ada,"  he  said, 
turning  to  me,  "and  tell  her  the  good  news.  Her  hap- 
piness, when  she  knows  it,  will  be  even  greater  than 
mine." 

Worn  out  by  the  events  of  the  day,  I  left  him  writing, 
and  went  to  bed.  I  was,  however,  either  too  anxious  or 
too  tired  to  sleep.  In  this  waking  condition,  my  mind 
naturally  occupied  itself  with  the  discovery  at  the  con- 


210  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

vent  and  with  the  events  to  which  that  discovery  would 
in  all  probability  lead.  As  I  thought  on  the  future,  a 
depression  for  which  I  could  not  account  weighed  on  my 
spirits.  There  was  not  the  slightest  reason  for  the 
vaguely  melancholy  forebodings  that  oppressed  me. 
The  remains,  to  the  finding  of. which  my  unhappy  friend 
attached  so  much  importance,  had  been  traced ;  they 
would  certainly  be  placed  at  his  disposal  in  a  few  days ; 
he  might  take  them  to  England  by  the  first  merchant 
vessel  that  sailed  from  Naples ;  and,  the  gratification  of 
his  strange  caprice  thus  accomplished,  there  was  at  least 
some  reason  to  hope  that  his  mind  might  recover  its 
tone,  and  that  the  new  life  he  would  lead  at  Wincot 
might  result  in  making  him  a  happy  man.  Such  consid- 
erations as  these  were,  in  themselves,  certainly  not  calcu- 
lated to  exert  any  melancholy  influence  over  me;  and 
yet,  all  through  the  night,  the  same  inconceivable,  unac- 
countable depression  weighed  heavily  on  my  spirits  — 
heavily  through  the  hours  of  darkness — heavily,  even 
when  I  walked  out  to  breathe  the  first  freshness  of  the 
early  morning  air. 

With  the  day  came  the  all-engrossing  business  of 
opening  negotiations  with  the  authorities. 

Only  those  who  have  had  to  deal  with  Italian  officials 
can  imagine  how  our  patience  was  tried  by  every  one 
with  whom  we  came  in  contact.  We  were  bandied 
about  from  one  authority  to  the  other,  were  stared  at, 
cross-questioned,  mystified — not  in  the  least  because  the 
case  presented  any  special  difficulties  or  intricacies,  but 
because  it  was  absolutely  necessary  that  every  civil  dig- 
nitary to  whom  we  applied  should  assert  his  own  import- 
ance by  leading  us  to  our  object  in  the  most  roundabout 
manner  possible.  After  our  first  day's  experience  of 
official  life  in  Italy,  I  left  the  absurd  formalities,  which 
we  had  no  choice  but  to  perform,  to  be  accomplished  by 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  2  1  1 

Alfred  alone,  and  applied  myself  to  the  really  serious 
question  of  how  the  remains  in  the  convent  out-house 
were  to  be  safely  removed. 

The  best  plan  that  suggested  itself  to  me  was  to  write 
to  a  friend  in  Rome,  where  I  knew  that  it  was  a  custom 
to  embalm  the  bodies  of  high  dignitaries  of  the  Church, 
and  where,  I  consequently  inferred,  such  chemical  assist- 
ance as  was  needed  in  our  emergency  might  be  obtained. 
I  simply  stated  in  my  letter  that  the  removal  of  the  body 
was  imperative,  then  described  the  condition  in  which  I 
had  found  it,  and  engaged  that  no  expense  on  our  part 
should  be  spared  if  the  right  person  or  persons  could  be 
found  to  help  us.  Here,  again,  more  difficulties  inter- 
posed themselves,  and  more  useless  formalities  were  to 
be  gone  through,  but  in  the  end  patience,  perseverance, 
and  money  triumphed,  and  two  men  came  expressly 
from  Rome  to  undertake  the  duties  we  required  of  them. 

It  is  unnecessary  that  I  should  shock  the  reader  by 
entering  into  any  detail  in  this  part  of  my  narrative. 
When  I  have  said  that  the  progress  of  decay  was  so  far 
suspended  by  chemical  means  as  to  allow  of  the  remains 
being  placed  in  the  coffin,  and  to  insure  their  being  trans- 
ported to  England  with  perfect  safety  and  convenience, 
I  have  said  enough.  After  ten  days  had  been  wasted  in 
useless  delays  and  difficulties,  I  had  the  satisfaction  of 
seeing  the  convent  out-house  empty  at  last;  passed 
through  a  final  ceremony  of  snuff-taking,  or,  rather,  of 
snuff-giving,  with  the  old  Capuchin,  and  ordered  the 
traveling  carriages  to  be  ready  at  the  inn  door.  Hardly 
a  month  had  elapsed  since  our  departure  ere  we  entered 
Naples  successful  in  the  achievement  of  a  design  which 
had  been  ridiculed  as  wildly  impracticable  by  every 
friend  of  ours  who  had  heard  of  it. 

The  first  object  to  be  accomplished  on  our  return  was 
to  obtain  the  means  of  carrying  the  coffin  to  England — 


212  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

by  sea,  as  a  matter  of  course.  All  inquiries  after  a  mer- 
chant vessel  on  the  point  of  sailing  for  any  British  port 
led  to  the  most  unsatisfactory  results.  There  was  only 
one  way  of  insuring  the  immediate  transportation  of  the 
remains  to  England,  and  that  was  to  hire  a  vessel.  Im- 
patient to  return,  and  resolved  not  to  lose  sight  of  the 
coffin  till  he  had  seen  it  placed  in  Wincot  vault,  Monk- 
ton  decided  immediately  on  hiring  the  first  ship  that 
could  be  obtained.  The  vessel  in  port  which  we  were 
informed  could  soonest  be  got  ready  for  sea  was  a  Sicili- 
an brig,  and  this  vessel  my  friend  accordingly  engaged. 
The  best  dock-yard  artisans  that  could  be  got  were  set 
to  work,  and  the  smartest  captain  and  crew  to  be  picked 
up  on  an  emergency  in  Naples  were  chosen  to  navigate 
the  brig. 

Monkton,  after  again  expressing  in  the  warmest  terms 
his  gratitude  for  the  services  I  had  rendered  him,  dis- 
claimed any  intention  of  asking  me  to  accompany  him  on 
the  voyage  to  England.  Greatly  to  his  surprise  and  de- 
light, however,  I  offered  of  my  own  accord  to  take  pas- 
sage in  the  brig.  The  strange  coincidences  I  had  wit- 
nessed, the  extraordinary  discovery  T  had  hit  on  since 
our  first  meeting  in  Naples,  had  made  his  one  great  in- 
terest in  life  my  one  great  interest  for  the  time  being  as 
\vell.  I  shared  none  of  his  delusions,  poor  fellow ;  but  it 
is  hardly  an  exaggeration  to  say  that  my  eagerness  to 
follow  our  remarkable  adventure  to  its  end  was  as  great 
as  his  anxiety  to  see  the  coffin  laid  in  Wincot  vault. 
Curiosity  influenced  me,  I  am  afraid,  almost  as  strongly 
as  friendship,  when  I  offered  myself  as  the  companion  of 
his  voyage  home. 

We  set  sail  for  England  on  a  calm  and  lovely  after- 
noon. 

For  the  first  time  since  I  had  known  him,  Monkton 
seemed  to  be  in  high  spirits.  He  talked  and  jested  on 


THE   QUEEN    OF   HEARTS.  213 

all  sorts  of  subjects,  and  laughed  at  me  for  allowing  my 
cheerfulness  to  be  affected  by  the  dread  of  sea-sickness. 
I  had  really  no  such  fear ;  it  was  my  excuse  to  my  friend 
for  a  return  of  that  unaccountable  depression  under 
which  I  had  suffered  at  Fondi.  Every  thing  was  in  our 
favor ;  every  body  on  board  the  brig  was  in  good  spir- 
its. The  captain  was  delighted  with  the  vessel;  the 
crew,  Italians  and  Maltese,  were  in  high  glee  at  the  pros- 
pect of  making  a  short  voyage  on  high  wages  in  a  well- 
provisioned  ship.  I  alone  felt  heavy  at  heart.  There 
was  no  valid  reason  that  I  could  assign  to  myself  for  the 
melancholy  that  oppressed  me,  and  yet  I  struggled 
against  it  in  vain. 

Late  on  our  first  night  at  sea,  I  made  a  discovery 
which  was  by  no  means  calculated  to  restore  my  spirits 
to  their  usual  equilibrium.  Monkton  was  in  the  cabin, 
on  the  floor  of  which  had  been  placed  the  packing-case 
containing  the  coffin,  and  I  was  on  deck.  The  wind  had 
fallen  almost  to  a  calm,  and  I  was  lazily  watching  the 
sails  of  the  brig  as  they  flapped  from  time  to  time  against 
the  masts,  when  the  captain  approached,  and,  drawing 
me  out  of  hearing  of  the  man  at  the  helm,  whispered  in 
my  ear, 

"There's  something  wrong  among  the  men  forward. 
Did  you  observe  how  suddenly  they  all  became  silent 
just  before  sunset?" 

I  had  observed  it,  and  told  him  so. 

"  There's  a  Maltese  boy  on  board,"  pursued  the  cap- 
tain, "  who  is  a  smart  enough  lad,  but  a  bad  one  to  deal 
with.  I  have  found  out  that  he  has  been  telling  the  men 
there  is  a  dead  body  inside  that  packing-case  of  your 
friend's  in  the  cabin." 

My  heart  sank  as  he  spoke.  Knowing  the  supersti- 
tious irrationality  of  sailors — of  foreign  sailors  especially 
— I  had  taken  care  to  spread  a  report  on  board  the  brig, 

10 


214  TlIK    QTKKN     OF    JIKAKTS. 

before  the  coffin  was  shipped,  that  the  packing-case  con- 
tained a  valuable  marble  statue  which  Mr.  Monkton 
prized  highly,  and  was  unwilling  to  trust  out  of  his  own 
sight.  How  could  this  Maltese  boy  have  discovered 
that  the  pretended  statue  was  a  human  corpse?  As  I 
pondered  over  the  question,  my  suspicions  fixed  them- 
selves on  Monkton's  servant,  who  spoke  Italian  fluently, 
and  whom  I  knew  to  be  an  incorrigible  gossip.  The 
man  denied  it  when  I  charged  him  with  betraying  us, 
but  I  have  never  believed  his  denial  to  this  day. 

"  The  little  imp  won't  say  where  he  picked  up  this  no- 
tion of  his  about  the  dead  body,"  continued  the  captain. 
"  It's  not  my  place  to  pry  into  secrets ;  but  I  advise  you 
to  call  the  crew  aft,  and  contradict  the  boy,  whether  he 
speaks  the  truth  or  not.  The  men  are  a  parcel  of  fools 
who  believe  in  ghosts,  and  all  the  rest  of  it.  Some  of 
them  say  they  would  never  have  signed  our  articles  if 
they  had  known  they  were  going  to  sail  with  a  dead 
man  ;  others  only  grumble  ;  but  I'm  afraid  we  shall  have 
some  trouble  with  them  all,  in  case  of  rough  weather, 

7  O 

unless  the  boy  is  contradicted  by  you  or  the  other  gen- 
tleman. The  men  say  that  if  either  you  or  your  friend 
tell  them  on  your  words  of  honor  that  the  Maltese  is  a 
liar,  they  will  hand  him  up  to  be  rope's-ended  according- 
ly ;  but  that  if  you  won't,  they  have  made  up  their  minds 
to  believe  the  boy." 

Here  the  captain  paused  and  awaited  my  answer.  I 
could  give  him  none.  I  felt  hopeless  under  our  despe- 
rate emergency.  To  get  the  boy  punished  by  giving  my 
word  of  honor  to  support  a  direct  falsehood  was  not  to 
be  thought  of  even  for  a  moment.  What  other  means 
of  extrication  from  this  miserable  dilemma  remained? 
Xone  that  I  could  think  of.  I  thanked  the  captain  for 
his  attention  to  our  interests,  told  him  I  would  take  time 
to  consider  what  course  I  should  pursue,  and  begged 


THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS.  215 

that  he  would  say  nothing  to  my  friend  about  the  dis- 
covery he  had  made.  He  promised  to  be  silent,  sulkily 
enough,  and  walked  away  from  me. 

We  had  expected  the  breeze  to  spring  up  with  the 
morning,  but  no  breeze  came.  As  it  wore  on  toward 
noon  the  atmosphere  became  insufferably  sultry,  and  the 
sea  looked  as  smooth  as  glass.  I  saw  the  captain's  eye 
turn  often  and  anxiously  to  windward.  Far  away  in  that 
direction,  and  alone  in  the  blue  heaven,  I  observed  a  lit- 
tle black  cloud,  and  asked  if  it  would  bring  us  any  wind. 

"More  than  we  want,"  the  captain  replied, shortly ;  and 
then,  to  my  astonishment,  ordered  the  crew  aloft  to  take 
in  sail.  The  execution  of  this  manoeuvre  showed  but  too 
plainly  the  temper  of  the  men  ;  they  did  their  work  sulk- 
ily and  slowly,  grumbling  and  murmuring  among  them- 
selves. The  captain's  manner,  as  he  urged  them  on  with 
oaths  and  threats,  convinced  me  we  were  in  danger.  I 
looked  again  to  windward.  The  one  little  cloud  had  en- 
larged to  a  great  bank  of  murky  vapor,  and  the  sea  at 
the  horizon  had  changed  in  color. 

"  The  squall  will  be  on  us  before  we  knoAV  where  we 
are,"  said  the  captain.  "  Go  below ;  you  will  be  only  in 
the  way  here." 

I  descended  to  the  cabin,  and  prepared  Monkton  for 
what  was  coming.  He  was  still  questioning  me  about 
what  I  had  observed  on  deck  when  the  storm  burst  on 
us.  We  felt  the  little  brig  strain  for  an  instant  as  if  she 
would  part  in  two,  then  she  seemed  to  be  swinging 
round  with  us,  then  to  be  quite  still  for  a  moment,  trem- 
bling in  every  timber.  Last  came  a  shock  which  hurled 
us  from  our  seats,  a  deafening  crash,  and  a  flood  of  water 
pouring  into  the  cabin.  We  clambered,  half  drowned,  to 
the  deck.  The  brig  had,  in  the  nautical  phrase,  "  broach- 
ed to,"  and  she  now  lay  on  her  beam-ends. 

Before  I  could  make  out  any  thing  distinctly  in  the 


216  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

horrible  confusion  except  the  one  tremendous  certainty 
that  we  were  entirely  at  the  mercy  of  the  sea,  I  heard. a 
voice  from  the  fore  part  of  the  ship  which  stilled  the 
clamoring  and  shouting  of  the  rest  of  the  crew  in  an  in- 
stant. The  words  were  in  Italian,  but  I  understood  their 
fatal  meaning  only  too  easily.  We  had  sprung  a  leak, 
and  the  sea  was  pouring  into  the  ship's  hold  like  the 
race  of  a  mill-stream.  The  captain  did  not  lose  his  pres- 
ence of  mind  in  this  fresh  emergency.  He  called  for  his 
axe  to  cut  away  the  foremast,  and,  ordering  some  of  the 
crew  to  help  him,  directed  the  others  to  rig  out  the 
pumps. 

The  words  had  hardly  passed  his  lips  before  the  men 
broke  into  open  mutiny.  With  a  savage  look  at  me, 
their  ringleader  declared  that  the  passengers  might  do 
as  they  pleased,  but  that  he  and  his  messmates  were  de- 
termined to  take  to  the  boat,  and  leave  the  accursed 
ship,  and  the  dead  man  in  her,  to  go  to  the  bottom  to- 
gether. As  he  spoke  there  was  a  shout  among  the  sail- 
ors, and  I  observed  some  of  them  pointing  derisively  be- 
hind me.  Looking  round,  I  saw  Monkton,  who  had 
hitherto  kept  close  at  rny  side,  making  his  way  back  to 
the  cabin.  I  followed  him  directly,  but  the  water  and 
confusion  on  deck,  and  the  impossibility,  from  the  posi- 
tion of  the  brig,  of  moving  the  feet  without  the  slow  as- 
sistance of  the  hands,  so  impeded  my  progress  that  it 
was  impossible  for  me  to  overtake  him.  When  I  had 
got  below  he  was  crouched  upon  the  coffin,  with  the 
water  on  the  cabin  floor  whirling  and  splashing  about 
him  as  the  ship  heaved  and  plunged.  I  saw  a  warning 
brightness  in  his  eyes,  a  warning  flush  on  his  cheek,  as  I 
approached  and  said  to  him, 

"  There  is  nothing  left  for  it,  Alfred,  but  to  bow  to  our 
misfortune,  and  do  the  best  we  can  to  save  our  lives." 

"  Save  yours,"  he  cried,  waving  his  hand  to  me,  "  for 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  217 

you  have  a  future  before  you.  Mine  is  gone  when  this 
coffin  goes  to  the  bottom.  If  the  ship  sinks,  I  shall 
know  that  the  fatality  is  accomplished,  and  shall  sink 
Avith  her." 

I  saw  that  he  was  in  no  state  to  be  reasoned  with  or 
persuaded,  and  raised  myself  again  to  the  deck.  The 
men  were  cutting  away  all  obstacles  so  as  to  launch  the 
long-boat,  placed  amidships  over  the  depressed  bulwark 
of  the  brig  as  she  lay  on  her,  side,  and  the  captain  after 
having  made  a  last  vain  exertion  to  restore  his  authority, 
was  looking  on  at  them  in  silence.  The  violence  of  the 
squall  seemed  already  to  be  spending  itself,  and  I  asked 
whether  there  was  really  no  chance  for  us  if  we  remain- 
ed by  the  ship.  The  captain  answered  that  there  might 
have  been  the  best  chance  if  the  men  had  obeyed  his 
orders,  but  that  now  there  was  none.  Knowing  that  I 
could  place  no  dependence  on  the  presence  of  mind  of 
Monkton's  servant,  I  confided  to  the  captain,  in  the  few- 
est and  plainest  words,  the  condition  of  my  unhappy 
friend,  and  asked  if  I  might  depend  on  his  help.  He 
nodded  his  head,  and  we  descended  together  to  the  cab- 
in. Even  at  this  day  it  costs  me  pain  to  write  of  the 
terrible  necessity  to  which  the  strength  and  obstinacy 
of  Monkton's  delusion  reduced  us  in  the  last  resort.  We 
were  compelled  to  secure  his  hands,  and  drag  him  by 
main  force  to  the  deck.  The  men  were  on  the  point  of 
launching  the  boat,  and  refused  at  first  to  receive  us 
into  it. 

"  You  cowards !"  cried  the  captain,  "  have  we  got  the 
dead  man  with  us  this  time  ?  Isn't  he  going  to  the  bot- 
tom along  with  the  brig  ?  Who  are  you  afraid  of  when 
we  get  into  the  boat  ?" 

This  sort  of  appeal  produced  the  desired  effect :  the 
men  became  ashamed  of  themselves,  and  refracted  their 
refusal. 


218  THE    ylEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

Just  as  we  pushed  off  from  the  sinking  ship  Alfred 
made  an  effort  to  break  from  me,  but  I  held  him  firm, 
and  he  never  repeated  the  attempt.  He  sat  by  me  with 
drooping  head,  still  and  silent,  while  the  sailors  rowed 
away  from  the  vessel ;  still  and  silent  when,  with  one  ac- 
cord, they  paused  at  a  little  distance  off,  and  we  all  wait- 
ed and  watched  to  see  the  brig  sink ;  still  and  silent, 
even  when  that  sinking  happened,  when  the  laboring  hull 
plunged  slowly  into  a  hollow  of  the  sea — hesitated,  as  it 
seemed,  for  one  moment,  rose  a  little  again,  then  sank  to 
rise  no  more. 

Sank  with  her  dead  freight — sank,  and  snatched  for- 
ever from  our  power  the  corpse  which  we  had  discover- 
ed almost  by  a  miracle — those  jealously-preserved  re- 
mains, on  the  safe-keeping  of  which  rested  so  strangely 
the  hopes  and  the  love-destinies  of  two  living  beings ! 
As  the  last  signs  of  the  ship  disappeared  in  the  depths 
of  the  waters,  I  felt  Monkton  trembling  all  over  as  he  sat 
close  at  my  side,  and  heard  him  repeating  to  himself, 
sadly,  and  many  times  over,  the  name  of  "  Ada." 

I  tried  to  turn  his  thoughts  to  another  subject,  but  it 
was  useless.  He  pointed  over  the  sea  to  where  the  brig 
had  once  been,  and  where  nothing  was  left  to  look  at  but 
the  rolling  waves. 

"  The  empty  place  will  now  remain  empty  forever  in 
Wincot  vault." 

As  he  said  those  words,  he  fixed  his  eyes  for  a  mo- 
ment sadly  and  earnestly  on  my  face,  then  looked  away, 
leaned  his  cheek  on  his  hand,  and  spoke  no  more. 

We  were  sighted  long  before  nightfall  by  a  trading- 
vessel,  were  taken  on  board,  and  landed  at  Cartagena  in 
Spain.  Alfred  never  held  up  his  head,  and  never  once 
spoke  to  me  of  his  own  accord  the  whole  time  we  were 
at  sea  in  the  merchantman.  I  observed,  however,  with 
alarm,  that  he  talked  often  and  incoherently  to  himself — 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  219 

constantly  muttering  the  lines  of  the  old  prophecy — con- 
stantly referring  to  the  fatal  place  that  was  empty  ill 
Wincot  vault — constantly  repeating  in  broken  accents, 
which  it  affected  me  inexpressibly  to  hear,  the  name  of 
the  poor  girl  who  was  awaiting  his  return  to  England. 
Nor  were  these  the  only  causes  for  the  apprehension  that 
I  now  felt  on  his  account.  Toward  the  end  of  our 
voyage  he  began  to  suffer  from  alternations  of  fever-fits 
and  shivering-fits,  which  I  ignorantly  imagined  to  be  at- 
tacks of  ague.  I  was  soon  undeceived.  We  had  hardly 
been  a  day  on  shore  before  he  became  so  much  worse 
that  I  secured  the  best  rae'dical  assistance  Cartagena 
could  afford.  For  a  day  or  two  the  doctors  differed,  as 
usual,  about  the  nature  of  his  complaint,  but  ere  long 
alarming  symptoms  displayed  themselves.  The  medical 
men  declared  that  his  life  was  in  danger,  and  told  me 
that  his  disease  was  brain  fever. 

Shocked  and  grieved  as  I  was,  I  hardly  knew  how  to 
act  at  first  under  the  fresh  responsibility  now  laid  upon 
me.  Ultimately  I  decided  on  writing  to  the  old  priest 
who  had  been  Alfred's  tutor,  and  who,  as  I  knew,  still 
resided  at  Wincot  Abbey.  I  told  this  gentleman  all  that 
had  happened,  begged  him  to  break  my  melancholy  news 
as  gently  as  possible  to  Miss  Elmslie,  and  assured  him  of 
my  resolution  to  remain  with  Monkton  to  the  last. 

After  I  had  dispatched  my  letter,  and  had  sent  to 
Gibraltar  to  secure  the  best  English  medical  advice  that 
could  be  obtained,  I  felt  that  I  had  done  my  best,  and 
that  nothing  remained  but  to  wait  and  hope. 

Many  a  sad  and  anxious  hour  did  I  pass  by  my  poor 
friend's  bedside.  Many  a  time  did  I  doubt  whether  I  had 
done  right  in  giving  any  encouragement  to  his  delusion. 
The  reasons  for  doing  so  which  had  suggested  themselves 
to  me  after  my  first  interview  with  him  seemed,  however, 
on  reflection,  to  be  valid  reasons  still,  The  only  way  of 


220  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

hastening  his  return  to  England  and  to  Miss  Elmslie, 
who  was  pining  for  that  return,  was  the  way  I  had  taken. 
It  was  not  my  fault  that  a  disaster  which  no  man  could 
foresee  had  overthrown  all  his  projects  and  all  mine. 
But,  now  that  the  calamity  had  happened  and  was  irre- 
trievable, how,  in  the  event  of  his  physical  recovery,  was 
his  moral  malady  to  be  combated  ? 

When  I  reflected  on  the  hereditary  taint  in  his  mental 
organization,  on  that  first  childish  fright  of  Stephen 
Monkton  from  which  he  had  never  recovered,  on  the 
perilously-secluded  life  that  he  had  led  at  the  Abbey,  and 
on  his  firm  persuasion  of  the  reality  of  the  apparition  by 
which  he  believed  himself  to  be  constantly  followed,  I 
confess  I  despaired  of  shaking  his  superstitious  faith  in 
every  word  and  line  of  the  old  family  prophecy.  If  the 
series  of  striking  coincidences  which  appeared  to  attest 
its  truth  had  made  a  strong  and  lasting  impression  on 
me  (and  this  was  assuredly  the  case),  how  could  I  won- 
der that  they  had  produced  the  effect  of  absolute  convic- 
tion on  his  mind,  constituted  as  it  was  ?  If  I  argued 
with  him,  and  he  answered  me,  how  could  I  rejoin  'i  If 
he  said,  "  The  prophecy  points  at  the  last  of  the  family : 
jTam  the  last  of  the  family.  The  prophecy  mentions  an 
empty  place  in  Wincot  vault:  there  is  such  an  empty 
place  there  at  this  moment.  On  the  faith  of  the  proph- 
ecy I  told  you  that  Stephen  Monkton's  body  was  un- 
buried,  and  you  found  that  it  was  unburied" — if  he  said 
this,  what  use  would  it  be  for  me  to  reply,  "  These  are 
only  strange  coincidences  after  all  ?" 

The  more  I  thought  of  the  task  that  lay  before  me,  if 
he  recovered,  the  more  I  felt  inclined  to  despond.  The 
ofte,ner  the  English  physician  who  attended  on  him  said 
to  me,  "  He  may  get  the  better  of  the  fever,  but  he  has  a 
fixed  idea,  which  never  leaves  him  night  or  day,  which 
has  unsettled  his  reason,  and  which  will  end  in  killing 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  221 

him,  unless  you  or  some  of  his  friends  can  remove  it" — 
the  oftener  I  heard  this,  the  more  acutely  I  felt  my  own 
powerlessness,  the  more  I  shrank  from  every  idea  that 
was  connected  with  the  hopeless  future. 

I  had  only  expected  to  receive  my  answer  from  Win- 
cot  in  the  shape  of  a  letter.  It  was  consequently  a  great 
surprise,  as  well  as  a  great  relief,  to  be  informed  one  day 
tli at  two  gentlemen  wished  to  speak  with  me,  and  to  find 
that  of  these  two  gentlemen  the  first  was  the  old  priest, 
and  the  second  a  male  relative  of  Mrs.  Elmslie. 

Just  before  their  arrival  the  fever-symptoms  had  dis- 
appeared, and  Alfred  had  been  pronounced  out  of  dan- 
ger. Both  the  priest  and  his  companion  were  eager  to 
know  when  the  sufferer  would  be  strong  enough  to  trav- 
el. They  had  come  to  Cartagena  expressly  to  take  him 
home  with  them,  and  felt  far  more  hopeful  than  I  did  of 
the  restorative  effects  of  his  native  air.  After  all  the 
questions  connected  with  the  first  important  point  of  the 
journey  to  England  had  been  asked  and  answered,  I  ven- 
tured to  make  some  inquiries  after  Miss  Elmslie.  Her 
relative  informed  me  that  she  was  suffering  both  in  body 
and  in  mind  from  excess  of  anxiety  on  Alfred's  account. 
They  had  been  obliged  to  deceive  her  as  to  the  danger- 
ous nature  of  his  illness  in  order  to  deter  her  from  ac- 
companying the  priest  and  her  relation  on  their  mission 
to  Spain. 

Slowly  and  imperfectly,  as  the  weeks  wore  on,  Alfred 
regained  something  of  his  former  physical  strength,  but 
no  alteration  appeared  in  his  illness  as  it  affected  his 
mind. 

From  the  very  first  day  of  his  advance  toward  recov- 
ery, it  had  been  discovered  that  the  brain  fever  had  ex- 
ercised the  strangest  influence  over  his  faculties  of  mem- 
ory. All  recollection  of  recent  events  was  gone  from 
him.  Every  thing  connected  with  Naples,  with  me,  with 

10* 


222  THE    yUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

his  journey  to  Italy,  had  dropped  in  some  mysterious 
manner  entirely  out  of  his  remembrance.  So  completely 
had  all  late  circumstances  passed  from  his  memory  that, 
though  he  recognized  the  old  priest  and  his  own  servant 
easily  on  the  first  days  of  his  convalescence,  he  never  rec- 
ognized me,  but  regarded  me  with  such  a  wistful,  doubt- 
ing expression,  that  I  felt  inexpressibly  pained  when  I 
approached  his  bedside.  All  his  questions  were  about 
Miss  Elmslie  and  Win  cot  Abbey,  and  all  his  talk  referred 
to  the  period  when  his  father  was  yet  alive. 

The  doctors  augured  good  rather  than  ill  from  this  loss 
of  memory  of  recent  incidents,  saying  that  it  would  turn 
out  to  be  temporary,  and  that  it  answered  the  first  great 
healing  purpose  of  keeping  his  mind  at  ease.  I  tried  to 
believe  them — tried  to  feel  as  sanguine,  when  the  day 
came  for  his  departure,  as  the  old  friends  felt  who  were 
taking  him  home.  But  the  effort  was  too  much  for  me. 
A  foreboding  that  I  should  never  see  him  again  oppress- 
ed my  heart,  and  the  tears  came  into  my  eyes  as  I  saw 
the  worn  figure  of  my  poor  friend  half  helped,  half  lifted 
into  the  traveling-carriage,  and  borne  away  gently  on  the 
road  toward  home. 

He  had  never  recognized  me,  and  the  doctors  had 
begged  that  I  would  give  him,  for  some  time  to  come, 
as  few  opportunities  as  possible  of  doing  so.  But  for 
this  request  I  should  have  accompanied  him  to  England. 
As  it  was,  nothing  better  remained  for  me  to  do  than  to 
change  the  scene,  and  recruit  as  I  best  could  my  energies 
of  body  and  mind,  depressed  of  late  by  much  watching 
and  anxiety.  The  famous  cities  of  Spain  were  not  new 
to  me,  but  I  visited  them  again,  and  revived  old  impres- 
sions of  the  Alhambra  and  Madrid.  Once  or  twice  I 
thought  of  making  a  pilgrimage  to  the  East,  but  late 
events  had  sobered  and  altered  me.  That  yearning,  un- 
satisfied feeling  which  we  call  "home-sickness"  began 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  223 

to  prey  upon  my  heart,  and  I  resolved  to  return  to  En- 
gland. 

I  went  back  by  way  of  Paris,  having  settled  with  the 
priest  that  he  should  write  to  me  at  my  banker's  there 
as  soon  as  he  could  after  Alfred  had  returned  to  Wincot. 
If  I  had  gone  to  the  East,  the  letter  would  have  been 
forwarded  to  me.  I  wrote  to  prevent  this ;  and,  on  my 
arrival  at  Paris,  stopped  at  the  banker's  before  I  went  to 
my  hotel. 

The  moment  the  letter  was  put  into  my  hands,  the 
black  border  on  the  envelope  told  me  the  worst.  He 
was  dead. 

There  was  but  one  consolation — he  had  died  calmly, 
almost  happily,  without  once  referring  to  those  fatal 
chances  which  had  wrought  the  fulfillment  of  the  ancient 
prophecy.  "My  beloved  pupil,"  the  old  priest  wrote, 
"  seemed  to  rally  a  little  the  first  few  days  after  his  re- 
turn, but  he  gained  no  real  strength,  and  soon  suffered  a 
slight  relapse  of  fever.  After  this  he  sank  gradually  and 
gently  day  by  day,  and  so  departed  from  us  on  the  last 
dread  journey.  Miss  Elmslie  (who  knows  that  I  am 
writing  this)  desires  me  to  express  her  deep  and  lasting 
gratitude  for  all  your  kindness  to  Alfred.  She  told  me 
when  we  brought  him  back  that  she  had  waited  for  him 
as  his  promised  wife,  and  that  she  would  nurse  him  now 
as  a  wife  should  ;  and  she  never  left  him.  His  face  was 
turned  toward  her,  his  hand  was  clasped  in  hers  when 
he  died.  It  will  console  you  to  know  that  he  never 
mentioned  events  at  Naples,  or  the  shipwreck  that  fol- 
lowed them,  from  the  day  of  his  return  to  the  day  of  his 
death." 

Three  days  after  reading  the  letter  I  was  at  Wincot, 
and  heard  all  the  details  of  Alfred's  last  moments  from 
the  priest.  I  felt  a  shock  which  it  would  not  be  very 
easy  for  me  to  analyze  or  explain  when  I  heard  that  he 


224  THE  QUEEN'  OF  HEARTS. 

had  been  buried,  at  his  own  desire,  in  the  fatal  Abbey 
vault. 

The  priest  took  me  down  to  see  the  place — a  grim, 
cold,  subterranean  building,  with  a  low  roof,  supported 
on  heavy  Saxon  arches.  Narrow  niches,  with  the  ends 
only  of  coffins  visible  within  them,  ran  down  each  side  of 
the  vault.  The  nails  and  silver  ornaments  flashed  here 
and  there  as  my  companion  moved  past  them  with  a  lamp 
in  his  hand.  At  the  lower  end  of  the  place  he  stopped, 
pointed  to  a  niche,  and  said,  "  He  lies  there,  between  his 
father  and  mother."  I  looked  a  little  farther  on,  and  saw 
what  appeared  at  first  like  a  long  dark  tunnel.  "That 
is  only  an  empty  niche,"  said  the  priest,  following  me. 
"  If  the  body  of  Mr.  Stephen  Monkton  had  been  brought 
to  Wincot,  his  coffin  would  have  been  placed  there." 

A  chill  came  over  me,  and  a  sense  of  dread  which  I 
am  ashamed  of  having  felt  now,  but  which  I  could  not 
combat  then.  The  blessed  light  of  day  was  pouring 
down  gayly  at  the  other  end  of  the  vault  through  the 
open  door.  I  turned  my  back  on  the  empty  niche,  and 
hurried  into  the  sunlight  and  the  fresh  air. 

As  I  walked  across  the  grass  glade  leading  down  to 
the  vault,  I  heard  the  rustle  of  a  woman's  dress  behind 
me,  and,  turning  round,  saw  a  young  lady  advancing,  clad 
in  deep  mourning.  Her  sweet,  sad  face,  her  manner  as 
she  held  out  her  hand,  told  me  who  it  was  in  an  instant. 

"  I  heard  that  you  were  here,"  she  said,  "  and  I  wish- 
ed— "  Her  voice  faltered  a  little.  My  heart  ached  as  I 
saw  how  her  lip  trembled,  but  before  I  could  say  any 
thing  she  recovered  herself  and  went  on  :  "I  wished  to 
take  your  hand,  and  thank  you  for  your  brotherly  kind- 
ness to  Alfred  ;  and  I  wanted  to  tell  you  that  I  am  sure 
in  all  you  did  you  acted  tenderly  and  considerately  for 
the  best.  Perhaps  you  may  be  soon  going  away  from 
home  again,  and  we  may  not  meet  any  more.  I  shall 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  225 

never,  never  forget  that  you  were  kind  to  him  when  he 
wanted  a  friend,  and  that  you  have  the  greatest  claim  of 
any  one  on  earth  to  be  gratefully  remembered  in  my 
thoughts  as  long  as  I  live." 

The  inexpressible  tenderness  of  her  voice,  trembling  a 
little  all  the  while  she  spoke,  the  pale  beauty  of  her  face, 
the  artless  candor  in  her  sad,  quiet  eyes,  so  affected  me 
that  I  could  not  trust  myself  to  answer  her  at  first  except 
by  gesture.  Before  I  recovered  my  voice  she  had  given 
me  her  hand  once  more  and  had  left  me. 

I  never  saw  her  again.  The  chances  and  changes  of 
life  kept  us  apart.  When  I  last  heard  of  her,  years  and 
years  ago,  she  was  faithful  to  the  memory  of  the  dead, 
and  was  Ada  Elmslie  still  for  Alfred  Monkton's  sake. 


THE  FIFTH  DAY. 

STILL  cloudy,  but  no  rain  to  keep  our  young  lady  in- 
doors. The  paper,  as  usual,  without  interest  to  me. 

To-day  Owen  actually  vanquished  his  difficulties  and 
finished  his  story.  I  numbered  it  Eight,  and  threw  the 
corresponding  number  (as  I  had  done  the  day  before  in 
Morgan's  case)  into  the  china  bowl. 

Although  I  could  discover  no  direct  evidence  against 
her,  I  strongly  suspected  The  Queen  of  Hearts  of  tamper- 
ing with  the  lots  on  the  fifth  evening,  to  irritate  Morgan 
by  making  it  his  turn  to  read  again,  after  the  shortest 
possible  interval  of  repose.  However  that  might  be,  the 
number  drawn  was  certainly  Seven,  and  the  story  to  be 
read  was  consequently  the  story  which  my  brother  had 
finished  only  two  days  before. 

If  I  had  not  known  that  it  was  part  of  Morgan's  char- 
acter always  to  do  exactly  the  reverse  of  what  might  be 
expected  from  him,  I  should  have  been  surprised  at  the 
extraordinary  docility  he  exhibited  the  moment  his  manu- 
script was  placed  in  his  hands. 

"  My  turn  again  ?"  he  said.  "  How  very  satisfactory ! 
I  was  anxious  to  escape  from  this  absurd  position  of  mine 
as  soon  as  possible,  and  here  is  the  opportunity  most  con- 
siderately put  into  my  hands.  Look  out,  all  of  you  !  I 
won't  waste  another  moment.  I  mean  to  begin  instant- 

ly." 

"  Do  tell  me,"  interposed  Jessie,  mischievously,  "  shall 
I  be  very  much  interested  to-night  ?" 

"Not  you!"  retorted  Morgan.  "You  will  be  very 
much  frightened  instead.  Your  hair  is  uncommonly 


228  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

smooth  at  the  present  moment,  but  it  will  be  all  stand- 
ing on  end  before  I've  done.  Don't  blame  me,  miss,  if 
you  are  an  object  when  you  go  to  bed  to-night !" 

With  this  curious  introductory  speech  he  began  to 
read.  I  was  obliged  to  interrupt  him  to  say  the  few 
words  of  explanation  which  the  story  needed. 

"Before  my  brother  begins,"  I  said,  "it  may  be  as 
well  to  mention  that  he  is  himself  the  doctor  who  is  sup- 
posed to  relate  this  narrative.  The  events  happened  at 
a  time  of  his  life  when  he  had  left  London,  and  had  es- 
tablished himself  in  medical  practice  in  one  of  our  large 
northern  towns." 

With  that  brief  explanation,  I  apologized  for  interrupt- 
ing the  reader,  and  Morgan  began  once  more. 


THE  QUEEN  OF  HEAKTS.  229 


BROTHER  MORGAN'S  STORY 

OF 

THE  DEAD  HAND. 


WHEN  this  present  nineteenth  century  was  younger 
by  a  good  many  years  than  it  is  now,  a  certain  friend  of 
mine,  named  Arthur  Holliday,  happened  to  arrive  in  the 
town  of  Doncaster  exactly  in  the  middle  of  the  race- week, 
or,  in  other  words,  in  the  middle  of  the  month  of  Sep- 
tember. 

He  was  one  of  those  reckless,  rattle-pated,  open-hearted, 
and  open-mouthed  young  gentlemen  who  possess  the  gift 
of  familiarity  in  its  highest  perfection,  and  who  scramble 
carelessly  along  the  journey  of  life,  making  friends,  as  the 
phrase  is,  wherever  they  go.  His  father  was  a  rich  man- 
ufacturer, and  had  bought  landed  property  enough  in  one 
of  the  midland  counties  to  make  all  the  bom  squires  in 
his  neighborhood  thoroughly  envious  of  him.  Arthur 
was  his  only  son,  possessor  in  prospect  of  the  great  estate 
and  the  great  business  after  his  father's  death  ;  well  sup- 
plied with  money,  and  not  too  rigidly  looked  after  during 
his  father's  lifetime.  Report,  or  scandal,  whichever  you 
please,  said  that  the  old  gentleman  had  been  rather  wild 
in  his  youthful  days,  and  that,  unlike  most  parents,  he 
was  not  disposed  to  be  violently  indignant  when  he  found 
that  his  son  took  after  him.  This  may  be  true  or  not.  I 
myself  only  knew  the  elder  Mr.  Holliday  when  he  was 
getting  on  in  years,  and  then  he  was  as  quiet  and  as  re- 
spectable a  gentleman  as  ever  I  met  with. 


230  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

Well,  one  September,  as  I  told  you,  young  Arthur 
comes  to  Doncaster,  having  decided  all  of  a  sudden,  in 
his  hare-brained  way,  that  he  would  go  to  the  races.  He 
did  not  reach  the  town  till  toward  the  close  of  evening, 
and  he  went  at  once  to  see  about  his  dinner  and  bed  at 
the  principal  hotel.  Dinner  they  were  ready  enough  to 
give  him,  but  as  for  a  bed,  they  laughed  when  he  men- 
tioned it.  In  the  race-week  at  Doncaster  it  is  no  uncom- 
mon thing  for  visitors  who  have  not  bespoken  apart- 
ments to  pass  the  night  in  their  carriages  at  the  inn 
doors.  As  for  the  lower  sort  of  strangers,  I  myself  have 
often  seen  them,  at  that  full  time,  sleeping  out  on  the 
door-steps  for  want  of  a  covered  place  to  creep  under. 
Rich  as  he  was,  Arthur's  chance  of  getting  a  night's 
lodging  (seeing  that  he  had  not  written  beforehand  to 
secure  one)  was  more  than  doubtful.  Retried  the  sec- 
ond hotel,  and  the  third  hotel,  and  two  of  the  inferior 
inns  after  that,  and  was  met  every  where  with  the  same 
form  of  answer.  No  accommodation  for  the  night  of  any 
sort  was  left.  All  the  bright  golden  sovereigns  in  his 
pocket  would  not  buy  him  a  bed  at  Doncaster  in  the 
race-week. 

To  a  young  fellow  of  Arthur's  temperament,  the  nov- 
elty of  being  turned  away  into  the  street  like  a  penniless 
vagabond,  at  every  house  where  he  asked  for  a  lodging, 
presented  itself  in  the  light  of  a  new  and  highly  amusing 
piece  of  experience.  He  went  on  with  his  carpet-bag  in 
his  hand,  applying  for  a  bed  at  every  place  of  entertain- 
ment for  travelers  that  he  could  find  in  Dcncaster,  until 
he  wandered  into  the  outskirts  of  the  town. 

By  this  time  the  last  glimmer  of  twilight  had  faded 
out,  the  moon  was  rising  dimly  in  a  mist,  the  wind  was 
getting  cold,  the  clouds  were  gathering  heavily,  and 
there  was  every  prospect  that  it  was  soon  going  to  rain ! 

The  look  of  the  ni<;ht  had  rather  a  lowering;  effect  on 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  231 

young  Holliday's  good  spirits.  He  began  to  contemplate 
the  houseless  situation  in  which  he  was  placed  from  the 
serious  rather  than  the  humorous  point  of  view,  and  he 
looked  about  him  for  another  public  house  to  inquire  at 
with  something  very  like  downright  anxiety  in  his  mind 
on  the  subject  of  a  lodging  for  the  night. 

The  suburban  part  of  the  town  toward  which  he  had 
now  strayed  was  hardly  lighted  at  all,  and  he  could  see 
nothing  of  the  houses  as  he  passed  them,  except  that 
they  got  progressively  smaller  and  dirtier  the  farther  he 
went.  Down  the  winding  road  before  him  shone  the 
dull  gleam  of  an  oil  lamp,  the  one  faint  lonely  light  that 
struggled  ineffectually  with  the  foggy  darkness  all  round 
him.  He  resolved  to  go  on  as  far  as  this  lamp,  and  then, 
if  it  showed  him  nothing  in  the  shape  of  an  inn,  to  return 
to  the  central  part  of  the  town,  and  to  try  if  he  could  not 
at  least  secure  a  chair  to  sit  down  on  through  the  night 
at  one  of  the  principal  hotels. 

As  he  got  near  the  lamp  he  heard  voices,  and,  walking 
close  under  it,  found  that  it  lighted  the  entrance  to  a 
narrow  court,  on  the  wall  of  which  was  painted  a  long 
hand  in  faded  flesh-color,  pointing  with  a  lean  fore-finger, 
to  this  inscription : 

THE   TWO   ROBINS. 

Arthur  turned  into  the  court  without  hesitation  to  see 
what  The  Two  Robins  could  do  for  him.  Four  or  five 
men  were  standing  together  round  the  door  of  the  house, 
which  was  at  the  bottom  of  the  court,  facing  the  entrance 
from  the  street.  The  men  were  all  listening  to  one  oth- 
er man,  better  dressed  than  the  rest,  who  was  telling  his 
audience  something,  in  a  low  voice,  in  which  they  were 
apparently  very  much  interested. 

On   entering  the  passage,  Arthur  was   passed  by  a 


23 J  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

stranger  with  a  knapsack  in  his  hand,  who  was  evidently 
leaving  the  house. 

"No,"  said  the  traveler  with  the  knapsack,  turning 
round  and  addressing  himself  cheerfully  to  a  fat,  sly- 
looking,  bald-headed  man,  with  a  dirty  white  apron  on, 
who  had  followed  him  down  the  passage,  "  no,  Mr.  Land- 
lord, I  am  not  easily  scared  by  trifles ;  but  I  don't  mind 
confessing  that  I  can't  quite  stand  that." 

It  occurred  to  young  Holliday,  the  moment  he  heard 
these  words,  that  the  stranger  had  been  asked  an  exorbi- 
tant price  for  a  bed  at  The  Two  Robins,  and  that  he  was 
unable  or  unwilling  to  pay  it.  The  moment  his  back 
was  turned,  Arthur,  comfortably  conscious  of  his  own 
well-filled  pockets,  addressed  himself  in  a  great  hurry, 
for  fear  any  other  benighted  traveler  should  slip  in  and 
forestall  him,  to  the  sly-looking  landlord  with  the  dirty 
apron  and  the  bald  head. 

"  If  you  have  got  a  bed  to  let,"  he  said,  "  and  if  that 
gentleman  who  has  just  gone  out  won't  pay  your  price 
for  it,  I  will." 

The  s4y  landlord  looked  hard  at  Arthur. 

"Will  you,  sir?"  he  asked,  in  a  meditative,  doubtful 
way. 

"Name  your  price,"  said  young  Holliday,  thinking 
that  the  landlord's  hesitation  sprang  from  some  boorish 
distrust  of  him.  "  Name  your  price,  and  I'll  give  you 
the  money  at  once,  if  you  like." 

"  Are  you  game  for  five  shillings  ?"  inquired  the  land- 
lord, rubbing  his  stubbly  double  chin,  and  looking  up 
thoughtfully  at  the  ceiling  above  him. 

Arthur  nearly  laughed  in  the  man's  face;  but,  think- 
ing it  prudent  to  control  himself,  offered  the  five  shillings 
as  seriously  ae  he  could.  The  sly  landlord  held  out  his 
hand,  then  suddenly  drew  it  back  again. 

"You're  acting  all  fair  and  aboveboard  by  me,"  he 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  233 

said,  "  and,  before  I  take  your  money,  I'll  do  the  same  by 
you.  Look  here ;  this  is  how  it  stands.  You  can  have 
a  bed  all  to  yourself  for  five  shillings,  but  you  can't  have 
more  than  a  half  share  of  the  room  it  stands  in.  Do  you 
see  what  I  mean,  young  gentleman  ?" 

"  Of  course  I  do,"  returned  Arthur,  a  little  irritably. 
"  You  mean  that  it  is  a  double-bedded  room,  and  that 
one  of  the  beds  is  occupied  ?" 

The  landlord  nodded  his  head,  and  rubbed  his  double 
chin  harder  than  ever.  Arthur  hesitated,  and  mechanic- 
ally moved  back  a  step  or  two  toward  the  door.  The 
idea  of  sleeping  in  the  same  room  with  a  total  stranger 
did  not  present  an  attractive  prospect  to  him.  He  felt 
more  than  half  inclined  to  drop  his  five  shillings  into  his 
pocket,  and  to  go  out  into  the  street  once  more. 

"  Is  it  yes  or  no  ?"  asked  the  landlord.  "  Settle  it  as 
quick  as  you  can,  because  there's  lots  of  people  wanting 
a  bed  at  Doncaster  to-night  besides  you." 

Arthur  looked  toward  the  court,  and  heard  the  rain 
falling  heavily  in  the  street  outside.  He  thought  he 
would  ask  a  question  or  tAvo  before  he  rashly  decided  on 
leaving  the  shelter  of  The  Two  Kobins. 

"  What  sort  of  man  is  it  who  has  got  the  other  bed  ?" 
he  inquired.  "  Is  he  a  gentleman  ?  I  mean,  is  he  a  quiet, 
well-behaved  person?" 

"The  quietest  man  I  ever  came  across,"  said  the  land- 
lord, rubbing  his  fat  hands  stealthily  one  over  the  other. 
"  As  sober  as  a  judge,  and  as  regular  as  clock-work  in 
his  habits.  It  hasn't  struck  nine  not  ten  minutes  ago, 
and  he's  in  his  bed  already.  I  don't  know  whether  that 
comes  up  to  your  notion  of  a  quiet  man :  it  goes  a  long 
way  ahead  of  mine,  I  can  tell  you." 

"  Is  he  asleep,  do  you  think  ?"  asked  Arthur. 

"I  know  he's  asleep,"  returned  the  landlord;  "and, 
what's  more,  he's  gone  off  so  fast  that  I'll  warrant  you 


234  THK    Ql'EEN    OF    HEAKTS. 

don't  wake  him.  This  way,  sir,"  said  the  landlord,  speak- 
ing over  young  Holliday's  shoulder,  as  it' he  was  address- 
ing some  new  guest  who  was  approaching  the  house. 

"  Here  you  are,"  said  Arthur,  determined  to  be  before- 
hand with  the  stranger,  whoever  he  might  be.  "  I'll 
take  the  bed."  And  he  handed  the  five  shillings  to  the 
landlord,  who  nodded,  dropped  the  money  carelessly  into 
his  waistcoat  pocket,  and  lighted  a  candle. 

"  Come  up  and  see  the  room,"  said  the  host  of  The 
Two  Robins,  leading  the  way  to  the  staircase  quite  brisk- 
ly, considering  how  fat  he  was. 

They  mounted  to  the  second  floor  of  the  house.  The 
landlord  half  opened  a  door  fronting  the  landing,  then 
stopped,  and  turned  round  to  Arthur. 

"It's  a  fair  bargain,  mind,  on  my  side  as  well  as  on 
yours,"  he  said.  "  You  give  me  five  shillings,  and  I  give 
you  in  return  a  clean,  comfortable  bed ;  and  I  warrant, 
beforehand,  that  you  won't  be  interfered  with,  or  annoy- 
ed in  any  way,  by  the  man  who  sleeps  in  the  same  room 
with  you."  Saying  those  words,  he  looked  hard,  for  a 
moment,  in  young  Holliday's  face,  and  then  led  the  way 
into  the  room. 

It  was  larger  and  cleaner  than  Arthur  had  expected  it 
would  be.  The  two  beds  stood  parallel  with  each  other, 
a  space  of  about  six  feet  intervening  between  then). 
They  were  both  of  the  same  medium  size,  and  both  had 
the  same  plain  white  curtains,  made  to  draw,  if  necessa- 
ry, all  round  them. 

The  occupied  bed  was  the  bed  nearest  the  window. 
The  curtains  were  all  drawn  round  it  except  the  half 
curtain  at  the  bottom,  on  the  side  of  the  bed  farthest 
from  the  window.  Arthur  saw  the  feet  of  the  sleeping 
man  raising  the  scanty  clothes  into  a  sharp  little  emi- 
nence, as  if  he  was  lying  flat  on  his  back.  He  took  the 
candle,  and  advanced  softly  to  draw  the  curtain — stop- 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  235 

ped  half  way,  and  listened  for  a  moment — then  turned  to 
the  landlord. 

"  He  is  a  very  quiet  sleeper,"  said  Arthur. 

"  Yes,"  said  the  landlord,  "  very  quiet." 

Young  Holliday  advanced  with  the  candle,  and  look- 
ed in  at  the  man  cautiously. 
•    "  How  pale  he  is,"  said  Arthur. 

"  Yes,"  returned  the  landlord,  "  pale  enough,  isn't 
he  ?" 

Arthur  looked  closer  at  the  man.  The  bed-clothes 
were  drawn  up  to  his  chin,  and  they  lay  perfectly  still 
over  the  region  of  his  chest.  Surprised  and  vaguely 
startled  as  he  noticed  this,  Arthur  stooped  down  closer 
over  the  stranger,  looked  at  his  ashy,  parted  lips,  listened 
breathlessly  for  an  instant,  looked  again  at  the  strange- 
ly still  face,  and  the  motionless  lips  and  chest,  and  turn- 
ed round  suddenly  on  the  landlord  with  his  own  cheeks 
as  pale  for  the  moment  as  the  hollow  cheeks  of  the  man 
on  the  bed. 

"  Come  here,"  he  whispered,  under  his  breath.  "  Come 
here,  for  God's  sake!  The  man's  not  asleep — he  is 
dead." 

"  You  have  found  that  out  sooner  than  I  thought  you 
would,"  said  the  landlord,  composedly.  "  Yes,  he's 
dead,  sure  enough.  He  died  at  five  o'clock  to-day." 

"How  did  he  die?  Who  is  he?"  asked  Arthur, 
staggered  for  the  moment  by  the  audacious  coolness  of 
the  answer. 

"  As  to  who  is  he,"  rejoined  the  landlord,  "  I  know  no 
more  about  him  than  you  do.  There  are  his  books,  and 
letters,  and  things  all  sealed  up  in  that  brown  paper  par- 
cel for  the  coroner's  inquest  to  open  to-morrow  or  next 
day.  He's  been  here  a  week,  paying  his  way  fairly 
enough,  and  stopping  in-doors,  for  the  most  part,  as  if 
he  was  ailing.  My  girl  brought  him  up  his  tea  at  five 


236  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

to-day,  and  as  he  was  pouring  of  it  out,  he  fell  down  in 
a  faint,  or  a  fit,  or  a  compound  of  both,  for  any  thing  I 
know.  We  couldn't  bring  him  to,  and  I  said  he  was 
dead.  And  the  doctor  couldn't  bring  him  to,  and  the 
doctor  said  lie  was  dead.  And  there  he  is.  And  the 
coroner's  inquest's  coming  as  soon  as  it  can.  And  that's 
as  much  as  I  know  about  it." 

Arthur  held  the  candle  close  to  the  man's  lips.  The 
flame  still  burned  straight  up  as  steadily  as  ever.  There 
was  a  moment  of  silence,  and  the  rain  pattered  drearily 
through  it  against  the  panes  of  the  window. 

"If  you  haven't  got  nothing  more  to  say  to  me,"  con- 
tinued the  landlord,  "  I  suppose  I  may  go.  You  don't 
expect  your  five  shillings  back,  do  you  ?  There's  the 
bed  I  promised  you,  clean  and  comfortable.  There's  the 
man  I  warranted  not  to  disturb  you,  quiet  in  this  world 
forever.  If  you're  frightened  to  stop  alone  Avith  him, 
that's  not  my  look  out.  I've  kept  my  part  of  the  bar- 
gain, and  I  mean  to  keep  the  money.  I'm  not  York- 
shire myself,  young  gentleman,  but  I've  lived  long 
enough  in  these  parts  to  have  my  wits  sharpened,  and 
I  shouldn't  wonder  if  you  found  out  the  way  to  brighten 
up  yours  next  time  you  come  among  us." 

With  these  words  the  landlord  turned  toward  the 
door,  and  laughed  to  himself  softly,  in  high  satisfaction 
at  his  own  sharpness. 

Startled  and  shocked  as  he  was,  Arthur  had  by  this 
time  sufficiently  recovered  himself  to  feel  indignant  at 
the  trick  that  had  been  played  on  him,  and  at  the  inso- 
lent manner  in  which  the  landlord  exulted  in  it. 

"Don't  laugh,"  he  said,  sharply,  "till  you  are  quite 
sure  you  have  got  the  laugh  against  me.  You  sha'n't 
have  the  five  shillings  for  nothing,  my  man.  I'll  keep 
the  bed." 

"  Will  you  ?"  said  the  landlord.     "  Then  I  wish  you  a 


THE    tjl'KKN    OF    HEARTS.  237 


good  night's  rest."     With  that  brief  farewell  he  went 
out  and  shut  the  door  after  him. 

A  good  night's  rest!  The  words  had  hardly  been 
spoken,  the  door  had  hardly  been  closed,  before  Arthur 
half  repented  the  hasty  words  that  had  just  escaped  him. 
Though  not  naturally  over-sensitive,  and  not  wanting  in 
courage  of  the  moral  as  well  as  the  physical  sort,  the 
presence  of  the  dead  man  had  an  instantaneously  chilling 
effect  on  his  mind  when  he  found  himself  alone  in  the 
room  —  alone,  and  bound  by  his  own  rash  words  to  stay 
there  till  the  next  morning.  An  older  man  would  have 
thought  nothing  of  those  words,  and  would  have  acted, 
without  reference  to  them,  as  his  calmer  sense  suggested. 
But  Arthur  was  too  young  to  treat  the  ridicule  even  of 
his  inferiors  with  contempt  —  too  young  not  to  fear  the 
momentary  humiliation  of  falsifying  his  own  foolish 
boast  more  than  he  feared  the  trial  of  watching  out  the 
long  night  in  the  same  chamber  with  the  dead. 

"  It  is  but  a  few  hours,"  he  thought  to  himself,  "  and 
I  can  get  away  the  first  thing  in  the  morning." 

He  was  looking  toward  the  occupied  bed  as  that  idea 
passed  through  his  mind,  and  the  sharp  angular  emi- 
nence made  in  the  clothes  by  the  dead  man's  upturned 
feet  again  caught  his  eye.  He  advanced  and  drew  the 
curtains,  purposely  abstaining,  as  he  did  so,  from  look- 
ing at  the  face  of  the  corpse,  lest  he  might  unnerve  him- 
self at  the  outset  by  fastening  some  ghastly  impression 
of  it  on  his  mind.  He  drew  the  curtain  very  gently, 
and  sighed  involuntarily  as  he  closed  it. 

"  Poor  fellow,"  he  said,  almost  as  sadly  as  if  he  had 
known  the  man.  "  Ah  !  poor  fellow  !" 

He  went  next  to  the  window.  The  night  was  black, 
and  he  could  see  nothing  from  it.  The  rain  still  patter- 
ed heavily  against  the  glass.  He  inferred,  from  hearing 
it,  that  the  window  was  at  the  back  of  the  house,  remem- 

11 


238  THE    QUEK^    OF    HEARTS. 

be  ring  that  the  front  was  sheltered  from  the  weather  by 
the  court  and  the  buildings  over  it. 

While  he  was  still  standing  at  the  window — for  even 
the  dreary  rain  was  a  relief,  because  of  the  sound  it 
made ;  a  relief,  also,  because  it  moved,  and  had  some 
faint  suggestion,  in  consequence,  of  life  and  companion- 
ship in  it — while  he  was  standing  at  the  window,  and 
looking  vacantly  into  the  black  darkness  outside,  he 
heard  a  distant  church  clock  strike  ten.  Only  ten !  How 
was  he  to  pass  the  time  till  the  house  was  astir  the 
next  morning? 

Under  any  other  circumstances  he  would  have  gone 
down  to  the  public-house  parlor,  would  have  called  for 
his  grog,  and  would  have  laughed  and  talked  with  the 
company  assembled  as  familiarly  as  if  he  had  known 
them  all  his  life.  But  the  very  thought  of  whiling  away 
the  time  in  this  manner  was  now  distasteful  to  him. 
The  new  situation  in  which  he  was  placed  seemed  to 
have  altered  him  to  himself  already.  Thus  far  his  life 
had  been  the  common,  trifling,  prosaic,  surface-life  of  a 
prosperous  young  man,  with  no  troubles  to  conquer  and 
no  trials  to  face.  He  had  lost  no  relation  whom  he 
loved,  no  friend  whom  he  treasured.  Till  this  night, 
what  share  he  had  of  the  immortal  inheritance  that  is 
divided  among  us  all  had  lain  dormant  within  him.  Till 
this  night,  Death  and  he  had  not  once  met,  even  in 
thought. 

He  took  a  few  turns  up  and  down  the  room,  then 
stopped.  The  noise  made  by  his  boots  on  the  poorly- 
carpeted  floor  jarred  on  his  ear.  He  hesitated  a  little, 
and  ended  by  taking  the  boots  off,  and  walking  back- 
ward and  forward  noiselessly. 

All  desire  to  sleep  or  to  rest  had  left  him.  The  bare 
thought  of  lying  down  on  the  unoccupied  bed  instantly 
drew  the  picture  on  his  mind  of  a  dreadful  mimicry  of 


THE    QUEEN    OP    HEARTS.  239 

the  position  of  the  dead  man.  Who  was  he  ?  What 
was  the  story  of  his  past  life  ?  Poor  he  must  have  been, 
or  he  would  not  have  stopped  at  such  a  place  as  the 
Two  Robins  Inn  ;  and  weakened,  probably,  by  long  ill- 
ness, or  he  could  hardly  have  died  in  the  manner  which 
the  landlord  had  described.  Poor,  ill,  lonely — dead  in  a 
strange  place — dead,  with  nobody  but  a  stranger  to  pity 
him.  A  sad  story ;  truly,  on  the  mere  face  of  it,  a  very 
sad  story. 

While  these  thoughts  were  passing  through  his  mind, 
he  had  stopped  insensibly  at  the  window,  close  to  which 
stood  the  foot  of  the  bed  with  the  closed  curtains.  At 
first  he  looked  at  it  absently ;  then  he  became  conscious 
that  his  eyes  were  fixed  on  it ;  and  then  a  perverse  de- 
sire took  possession  of  him  to  do  the  very  thing  which 
he  had  resolved  not  to  do  up  to  this  time  —  to  look  at 
the  dead  man. 

He  stretched  out  his  hand  toward  the  curtains,  but 
checked  himself  in  the  very  act  of  undrawing  them, 
turned  his  back  sharply  on  the  bed,  and  walked  toward 
the  chimney-piece,  to  see  what  things  were  placed  on  it, 
and  to  try  if  he  could  keep  the  dead  man  out  of  his  mind 
in  that  way. 

There  was  a  pewter  inkstand  on  the  chimney-piece, 
with  some  mildewed  remains  of  ink  in  the  bottle.  There 
were  two  coarse  china  ornaments  of  the  commonest 
kind ;  and  there  was  a  square  of  embossed  card,  dirty 
and  fly-blown,  with  a  collection  of  wretched  riddles  print- 
ed on  it,  in  all  sorts  of  zigzag  directions,  and  in  variously 
colored  inks.  He  took  the  card,  and  went  away  to  read 
it  at  the  table  on  which  the  candle  was  placed,  sitting 
down  with  his  back  resolutely  turned  to  the  curtained 
bed. 

He  read  the  first  riddle,  the  second,  the  third,  all  in 
one  corner  of  the  card,  then  turned  it  round  impatiently 


240  THE    QUKEX    OF    HKAKTS. 

to  look  at  another.  Before  he  could  begin  reading  the 
riddles  printed  here  the  sound  of  the  church  clock  stop- 
ped him. 

Eleven. 

He  had  got  through  an  hour  of  the  time  in  the  room 
with  the  dead  man. 

Once  more  he  looked  at  the  card.  It  was  not  easy  to 
make  out  the  letters  printed  on  it  in  consequence  of  the 
dimness  of  the  light  which  the  landlord  had  left  him — a 
common  tallow  candle,  furnished  with  :i  pair  of  heavy 
old-fashioned  steel  snuffers.  Up  to  this  time  his  mind 
had  been  too  much  occupied  to  think  of  the  light.  He 
had  left  the  wick  of  the  candle  unsnuffed  till  it  had  risen 
higher  than  the  flame,  and  had  burned  into  an  odd  pent- 
house shape  at  the  top,  from  which  morsels  of  the  char- 
red cotton  fell  off  from  time  to  time  in  little  flakes.  He 
took  up  the  snuffers  now  and  trimmed  the  wick.  The 
light  brightened  directly,  and  the  room  became  less  dis- 
mal. 

Again  he  turned  to  the  riddles,  reading  them  dogged- 
ly and  resolutely,  now  in  one  corner  of  the  card,  now  in 
another.  All  his  efforts,  however,  could  not  fix  his 
attention  on  them.  He  pursued  his  occupation  mechanic  - 
ally,  deriving  no  sort  of  impression  from  what  he  was 
reading.  It  was  as  if  a  shadow  from  the  curtained  bed 
had  got  between  his  mind  and  the  gayly  printed  letters 
— a  shadow  that  nothing  could  dispel.  At  last  he  gave 
up  the  struggle,  threw  the  card  from  him  impatiently, 
and  took  to  walking  softly  up  and  down  the  room  again. 

The  dead  man,  the  dead  man,  the  hidden  dead  man  on 
the  bed  ! 

There  was  the  one  persistent  idea  still  haunting  him. 
Hidden  !  "Was  it  only  the  body  being  there,  or  was  it 
the  body  being  there,  concealed,  that  was  preying  on  his 
mind?  He  stopped  at  the  window  with  that  doubt  in 


THE  QUEEN*  OF  HEARTS.  241 

him,  once  mow.  listening  to  the  pattering  rain,  once  more 
looking  out  into  the  black  darkness. 

Still  the  dead  man  ! 

The  darkness  forced  his  mind  back  upon  itself,  and  set 
his  memory  at  work,  reviving  with  a  painfully  vivid  dis- 
tinctness the  momentary  impression  it  had  received  from 
his  first  sight  of  the  corpse.  Before  long  the  face  seem- 
ed to  be  hovering  out  in  the  middle  of  the  darkness,  con- 
fronting him  through  the  window,  with  the  paleness 
whiter — with  the  dreadful  dull  line  of  light  between  the 
imperfectly-closed  eyelids  broader  than  he  had  seen  it — 
with  the  parted  lips  slowly  dropping  farther  and  farther 
away  from  each  other — with  the  features  growing  larger 
and  moving  closer,  till  they  seemed  to  fill  the  window, 
and  to  silence  the  rain,  and  to  shut  out  the  night. 

The  sound  of  a  voice  shouting  below  stairs  woke  him 
suddenly  from  the  dream  of  his  own  distempered  fancy. 
He  recognized  it  as  the  voice  of  the  landlord. 

"  Shut  up  at  twelve,  Ben,"  he  heard  it  say.  "  I'm  off 
to  bed." 

He  wiped  away  the  damp  that  had  gathered  on  his 
forehead,  reasoned  with  himself  for  a  little  while,  and 
resolved  to  shake  his  mind  free  of  the  ghastly  counter- 
feit which  still  clung  to  it  by  forcing  himself  to  confront, 
if  it  was  only  for  a  moment,  the  solemn  reality.  With- 
out allowing  himself  an  instant  to  hesitate,  he  parted  the 
curtains  at  the  foot  of  the  bed,  and  looked  through. 

There  was  the  sad,  peaceful,  white  face,  with  the  awful 
mystery  of  stillness  on  it,  laid  back  upon  the  pillow.  No 
stir,  no  change  there !  He  only  looked  at  it  for  a  mo- 
ment before  he  closed  the  curtains  again,  but  that  mo- 
ment steadied  him,  calmed  him,  restored  him — mind  and 
body — to  himself.  He  returned  to  his  old  occupation 
of  walking  up  and  down  the  room,  persevering  in  it  this 
time  till  the  clock  struck  again. 


242  TUB    QUEEN    OF    HEAKTS. 

Twelve. 

As  the  sound  of  the  clock-bell  died  away,  it  was  suc- 
ceeded by  the  confused  noise  down  stairs  of  the  drinkers 
in  the  tap-room  leaving  the  house.  The  next  sound,  aft- 
er an  interval  of  silence,  was  caused  by  the  barring  of  the 
door  and  the  closing  of  the  shutters  at  the  back  of  the 
inn.  Then  the  silence  followed  again,  and  was  disturbed 
no  more. 

He  was  alone  now — absolutely,  hopelessly  alone  with 
the  dead  man  till  the  next  morning. 

The  wick  of  the  candle  wanted  trimming  again.  He 
took  up  the  snuffers,  but  paused  suddenly  on  the  very 
point  of  using  them,  and  looked  attentively  at  the  candle 
— then  back,  over  his  shoulder,  at  the  curtained  bed — 
then  again  at  the  candle.  It  had  been  lighted  for  the 
first  time  to  show  him  the  way  up  stairs,  and  three  parts 
of  it,  at  least,  Avere  already  consumed.  In  another  hour 
it  would  be  burned  out.  In  another  hour,  unless  he  called 
at  once  to  the  man  who  had  shut  up  the  inn  for  a  fresh 
candle,  he  would  be  left  in  the  dark. 

Strongly  as  his  mind  had  been  affected  since  he  had 
entered-  the  room,  his  unreasonable  dread  of  encounter- 
ing ridicule  and  of  exposing  his  courage  to  suspicion  had 
not  altogether  lost  its  influence  over  him  even  yet. 

He  lingered  irresolutely  by  the  table,  waiting  till  he 
could  prevail  on  himself  to  open  the  door,  and  call  from 
the  landing,  to  the  man  who  had  shut  up  the  inn.  In 
his  present  hesitating  frame  of  mind,  it  was  a  kind  of  re- 
lief to  gain  a  few  moments  only  by  engaging  in  the  tri- 
fling occupation  of  snufling  the  candle.  His  hand  trem- 
bled a  little,  and  the  snuffers  were  heavy  and  awkward 
to  use.  When  he  closed  them  on  the  wick,  he  closed 
them  a  hair's  breadth  too  low.  In  an  instant  the  candle 
was  out,  and  the  room  was  plunged  in  pitch  darkness. 

The  one  impression  winch  the  absence  of  light  inline-; 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  243 

diately  produced  on  his  mind  was  distrust  of  the  curtain- 
ed bed — distrust  which  shaped  itself  into  no  distinct  idea, 
but  which  was  powerful  enough,  in  its  very  vagueness, 
to  bind  him  down  to  his  chair,  to  make  his  heart  beat 
fast,  and  to  set  him  listening  intently.  No  sound  stirred 
in  the  room,  but  the  familiar  sound  of  the  rain  against 
the  window,  louder  and  sharper  now  than  he  had  heard 
it  yet. 

Still  the  vague  distrust,  the  inexpressible  dread  pos- 
sessed him,  and  kept  him  in  his  chair.  He  had  put  his 
carpet  bag  on  the  table  when  he  first  entered  the  room, 
and  he  now  took  the  key  from  his  pocket,  reached  out 
his  hand  softly,  opened  the  bag,  and  groped  in  it  for  his 
traveling  writing-case,  in  which  he  knew  that  there  was 
a  small  store  of  matches.  When  he  had  got  one  of  the 
matches,  he  waited  before  he  struck  it  on  the  coarse 
wooden  table,  and  listened  intently  again  without  know- 
ing why.  Still  there  w*as  no  sound  in  the  room  but  the 
steady,  ceaseless  rattling  sound  of  the  rain. 

He  lighted  the  candle  again  without  another  moment 
of  delay,  and,  on  the  instant  of  its  burning  up,  the  first 
object  in  the  room  that  his  eyes  sought  for  was  the  cur- 
tained bed. 

Just  before  the  light  had  been  put  out  he  had  looked 
in  that  direction,  and  had  seen  no  change,  no  disarrange- 
ment of  any  sort  in  the  folds  of  the  closely -drawn  cur- 
tains. 

When  he  looked  at  the  bed  now,  he  saw  hanging  over 
the  side  of  it  a  long  white  hand. 

It  lay  perfectly  motionless  midway  on  the  side  of  the 
bed,  where  the  curtain  at  the  head  and  the  curtain  at  the 
foot  met.  Nothing  more  was  visible.  The  clinging  cur- 
tains hid  every  thing  but  the  long  white  hand. 

He  stood  looking  at  it,  unable  to  stir,  unable  to  call 
out — feeling  nothing,  knowing  nothing — every  faculty  he 


244  THE    QUEEN"    OF    II KA  IMS. 

possessed  gathered  up  and  lost  in  the  one  seeing  faculty. 
How  long  that  first  panic  held  him  he  never  could  tell 
afterward.  It  might  have  been  only  for  a  moment — it 
might  have  been  for  many  minutes  together.  How  he 
got  to  the  bed — whether  lie  ran  to  it  headlong,  or  wheth- 
er he  approached  it  slowly — how  he  wrought  himself  up 
to  unclose  the  curtains  and  look  in,  lie  never  has  remem- 
bered, and  never  will  remember  to  his  dying  day.  It  is 
enough  that  he  did  go  to  the  bed,  and  that  he  did  look 
inside  the  curtains. 

The  man  had  moved.  One  of  his  arms  was  outside 
the  clothes ;  his  face  was  turned  a  little  on  the  pillow  ; 
his  eyelids  were  wide  open.  Changed  as  to  position 
and  as  to  one  of  the  features,  the  face  was  otherwise  fear- 
fully and  wonderfully  unaltered.  The  dead  paleness  and 
the  dead  quiet  were  on  it  still. 

One  glance  showed  Arthur  this — one  glance  before  he 
flew  breathlessly  to  the  door  and  alarmed  the  house. 

The  man  whom  the  landlord  called  "  Ben"  was  the 
first  to  appear  on  the  stairs.  In  three  words  Arthur  told 
him  what  had  happened,  and  sent  him  for  the  nearest 
doctor. 

I,  who  tell  you  this  story,  was  then  staying  with  a 
medical  friend  of  mine,  in  practice  at  Doncaster,  taking 
care  of  his  patients  for  him  during  his  absence  in  Lon- 
don ;  and  I,  for  the  time  being,  was  the  nearest  doctor. 
They  had  sent  for  ine  from  the  inn  when  the  stranger 
was  taken  ill  in  the  afternoon,  but  I  was  not  at  home, 
and  medical  assistance  was  sought  for  elsewhere.  When 
the  man  from  the  Two  Robins  rang  the  night-bell,  I  was 
just  thinking  of  going  to  bed.  Naturally  enough,  I  did 
not  believe  a  word  of  his  story  about  "  a  dead  man  who 
had  come  to  life  again."  However,  I  put  on  my  hat, 
armed  myself  with  one  or  two  bottles  of  restorative 
medicine,  and  ran  to  the  inn,  expecting  to  find  nothing 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  245 

more  remarkable,  when  I  got  there,  than  a  patient  in  a 
fit. 

My  surprise  at  finding  that  the  man  had  spoken  the 
literal  truth  was  almost,  if  not  quite,  equaled  by  my  as- 
tonishment at  finding  myself  face  to  face  with  Arthur 
Holliday  as  soon  as  I  entered  the  bedroom.  It  was  no 
time  then  for  giving  or  seeking  explanations.  We  just 
shook  hands  amazedly,  and  then  I  ordered  every  body 
but  Arthur  out  of  the  room,  and  hurried  to  the  man  on 
the  bed. 

The  kitchen  fire  had  not  been  long  out.  There  was 
plenty  of  hot  water  in  the  boiler,  and  plenty  of  flannel  to 
be  had.  With  these,  with  my  medicines,  and  with  such 
help  as  Arthur  could  render  under  my  direction,  I  drag- 
ged the  man  literally  out  of  the  jaws  of  death.  In  less 
than  an  hour  from  the  time  when  I  had  been  called  in,  he 
was  alive  and  talking  in  the  bed  on  which  he  had  been 
laid  out  to  wait  for  the  coroner's  inquest. 

You  will  naturally  ask  me  what  had  been  the  matter 
with  him,  and  I  might  treat  you,  in  reply,  to  a  long  the- 
ory, plentifully  sprinkled  with  what  the  children  call  hard 
words.  I  prefer  telling  you  that,  in  this  case,  cause  and 
effect  could  not  be  satisfactorily  joined  together  by  any 
theory  whatever.  There  are  mysteries  in  life  and  the 
conditions  of  it  which  human  science  has  not  fathomed 
yet ;  and  I  candidly  confess  to  you  that,  in  bringing  that 
man  back  to  existence,  I  was,  morally  speaking,  groping 
haphazard  in  the  dark.  I  know  (from  the  testimony  of 
the  doctor  who  attended  him  in  the  afternoon)  that  the 
vital  machinery,  so  far  as  its  action  is  appreciable  by  our 
senses,  had,  in  this  case,  unquestionably  stopped,  and  I 
am  equally  certain  (seeing  that  I  recovered  him)  that  the 
vital  principal  was  not  extinct.  When  I  add  that  he  had 
suffered  from  a  long  and  complicated  illness,  and  that  his 
whole  nervous  system  was  utterly  deranged,  I  have  told 
11* 


246  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

you  all  I  really  know  of  the  physical  condition  of  my 
dead-alive  patient  at  the  Two  Kobins  Inn. 

When  he  "came  to,"  as  the  phrase  goes,  he  was  a 
startling  object  to  look  at,  with  his  colorless  face,  his 
sunken  cheeks,  his  wild  black  eyes,  and  his  long  black 
hair.  The  first  question  he  asked  me  about  himself  when 
he  could  speak  made  me  suspect  that  I  had  been  called 
in  to  a  man  in  my  own  profession.  I  mentioned  to  him 
my  surmise,  and  he  told  me  that  I  was  right. 

He  said  he  had  come  last  from  Paris,  where  he  had 
been  attached  to  a  hospital ;  that  he  had  lately  returned 
to  England,  on  his  way  to  Edinburgh,  to  continue  his 
studies ;  that  he  had  been  taken  ill  on  the  journey ;  and 
that  he  had  stopped  to  rest  and  recover  himself  at  Don- 
caster.  He  did  not  add  a  word  about  his  name,  or  who 
he  was,  and  of  course  I  did  not  question  him  on  the  sub- 
ject. All  I  inquired  when  he  ceased  speaking  was  what 
branch  of  the  profession  he  intended  to  follow. 

"Any  branch,"  he  said,  bitterly,  "  which  will  put  bread 
into  the  mouth  of  a  poor  man." 

At  this,  Arthur,  who  had  been  hitherto  watching  him 
in  silent  curiosity,  burst  out  impetuously  in  his  usual 
good-humored  way, 

"  My  dear  fellow"  (every  body  was  "  my  dear  fellow" 
with  Arthur),  "  now  you  have  come  to  life  again,  don't 
begin  by  being  downhearted  about  your  prospects.  I'll 
answer  for  it  I  can  help  you  to  some  capital  thing  in  the 
medical  line,  or,  if  I  can't,  I  know  my  father  can." 

The  medical  student  looked  at  him  steadily. 

"  Thank  you,"  he  said,  coldly ;  then  added,  "  May  I 
ask  who  your  father  is  ?" 

"  He's  well  enough  known  all  about  this  part  of  the 
country,"  replied  Arthur.  "  He  is  a  great  manufacturer, 
and  his  name  is  Holliday." 

My  hand  was  on  the  man's  wrist  during  this  brief  con- 


THK    IJt'EKX    UK    II  HARTS.  247 

versation.  The  instant  the  name  of  Holliday  was  pro- 
nounced I  felt  the  pulse  under  my  fingers  flutter,  stop, 
go  on  suddenly  with  a  bound,  and  beat  afterward  for  a 
minute  or  two  at  the  fever  rate. 

"  How  did  you  come  here?"  asked  the  stranger,  quick- 
ly, excitably,  passionately  almost. 

Arthur  related  briefly  what  had  happened  from  the 
time  of  his  first  taking  the  bed  at  the  inn. 

"  I  am  indebted  to  Mr.  Holliday's  son,  then,  for  the 
help  that  has  saved  my  life,"  said  the  medical  student, 
speaking  to  himself,  with  a  singular  sarcasm  in  his  voice. 
"  Come  here !" 

He  held  out,  as  he  spoke,  his  long,  white,  bony  right 
hand. 

"  With  all  my  heart,"  said  Arthur,  taking  his  hand  cor- 
dially. "  I  may  confess  it  now,"  he  continued,  laughing, 
"  upon  my  honor,  you  almost  frightened  me  out  of  iny 
wits." 

The  stranger  did  not  seem  to  listen.  His  wild  black 
eyes  were  fixed  with  a  look  of  eager  interest  on  Arthur's 
face,  and  his  long  bony  fingers  kept  tight  hold  of  Arthur's 
hand.  Young  Holliday,  on  his  side,  returned  the  gaze, 
amazed  and  puzzled  by  the  medical  student's  odd  lan- 
guage and  manners.  The  two  faces  were  close  together ; 
I  looked  at  them,  and,  to  my  amazement,  I  was  sudden- 
ly impressed  by  the  sense  of  a  likeness  between  them — 
not  in  features  or  complexion,  but  solely  in  expression. 
It  must  have  been  a  strong  likeness,  or  I  should  certain- 
ly not  have  found  it  out,  for  I  am  naturally  slow  at  de- 
tecting resemblances  between  faces. 

"  You  have  saved  my  life,"  said  the  strange  man,  still 
looking  hard  in  Arthur's  face,  still  holding  tightly  by  his 
hand.  "  If  you  had  been  my  own  brother,  you  could 
not  have  done  more  for  me  than  that." 

He  laid  a  singularly  strong  emphasis  on  those  three 


248  THE    tjUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

words  u  rny  own  brother,"  and  a  change  passed  over  his 
lace  as  he  pronounced  them — a  change  that  no  language 
of  mine  is  competent  to  describe. 

"  I  hope  I  have  not  done  being  of  service  to  you  yet," 
said  Arthur.  "  I'll  speak  to  my  father  as  soon  as  I  get 
home." 

"  You  seem  to  be  fond  and  proud  of  your  father,"  said 
the  medical  student.  "  I  suppose,  in  return,  he  is  fond 
and  proud  of  you  ?" 

"  Of  course  he  is,"  answered  Arthur,  laughing.  "  Is 
there  any  thing  wonderful  in  that  ?  Isn't  your  father 
fond—" 

The  stranger  suddenly  dropped  young  Holliday's  hand 
and  turned  his  face  away. 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,"  said  Arthur.  "  I  hope  I  have 
not  unintentionally  pained  you.  I  hope  you  have  not 
lost  your  father  ?" 

"  I  can't  well  lose  what  I  have  never  had,"  retorted 
the  medical  student,  with  a  harsh  mocking  laugh. 

"  What  you  have  never  had !" 

The  strange  man  suddenly  caught  Arthur's  hand  again, 
suddenly  looked  once  more  hard  in  his  face. 

"  Yes,"  he  said,  with  a  repetition  of  the  bitter  laugh. 
"You  have  brought  a  poor  devil  back  into  the  world 
who  has  no  business  there.  Do  I  astonish  you  ?  Well, 
I  have  a  fancy  of  my  own  for  telling  you  what  men  in 
my  situation  generally  keep  a  secret.  I  have  no  name 
and  no  father.  The  merciful  law  of  society  tells  me  I 
am  nobody's  son!  Ask  your  father  if  he  will  be  my 
father  too,  and  help  me  on  in  life  with  the  family  name." 

Arthur  looked  at  me  more  puzzled  than  ever. 

I  signed  to  him  to  say  nothing,  and  then  laid  my  fin- 
gers again  on  the  man's  wrist.  No.  In  spite  of  the  ex- 
traordinary speech  that  he  had  just  made,  he  was  not,  as 
I  had  been  disposed  to  suspect,  beginning  to  get  light 


THE    QUICKX    OF    HEARTS.  240 

headed.  His  pulse,  by  this  time,  had  fallen  back  to  a 
quiet,  slow  beat,  and  his  skin  was  moist  and  cool.  Not 
a  symptom  of  fever  or  agitation  about  him. 

Finding  that  neither  of  us  answered  him,  he  turned  to 
me,  and  began  talking  of  the  extraordinary  nature  of  his 
case,  and  asking  my  advice  about  the  future  course  of 
medical  treatment  to  which  he  ought  to  subject  himself. 
L  said  the  matter  required  careful  thinking  over,  and 
suggested  that  I  should  send  him  a  prescription  a  little 
later.  He  told  me  to  write  it  at  once,  as  he  would  most 
likely  be  leaving  Doncaster  in  the  morning  before  I  was 
up.  It  was  quite  useless  to  represent  to  him  the  folly 
and  danger  of  such  a  proceeding  as  this.  He  heard  me 
politely  and  patiently,  but  held  to  his  resolution,  without 
offering  any  reasons  or  explanations,  and  repeated  to  me 
that,  if  I  wished  to  give  him  a  chance  of  seeing  my  pre- 
scription, I  must  write  it  at  once. 

Hearing  this,  Arthur  volunteered  the  loan  of  a  travel- 
ing writing-case  which  he  said  he  had  with  him,  and, 
bringing  it  to  the  bed,  shook  the  note-paper  out  of  the 
pocket  of  the  case  forthwith  in  his  usual  careless  way. 
With  the  paper  there  fell  out  on  the  counterpane  of  the 
bed  a  small  packet  of  sticking-plaster,  and  a  little  water- 
color  drawing  of  a  landscape. 

The  medical  student  took  up  the  drawing  and  looked 
at  it.  His  eye  fell  on  some  initials  neatly  written  in  ci- 
pher in  one  corner.  He  started  and  trembled ;  his  pale 
face  grew  whiter  than  ever ;  his  wild  black  eyes  turned 
on  Arthur,  and  looked  through  and  through  him. 

"  A  pretty  drawing,"  he  said,  in  a  remarkably  quiet 
tone  of  voice. 

"  Ah  !  and  done  by  such  a  pretty  girl,"  said  Arthur. 
"  Oh,  such  a  pretty  girl !  I  wish  it  was  not  a  landscape 
— I  wish  it  was  a  portrait  of  her  !" 

"  You  admire  her  very  much  ?" 


250  THE    QUEEX    OF    IIEAKTS. 

Arthur,  half  in  jest,  half  in  earnest,  kissed  his  hand 
for  answer. 

"  Love  at  first  sight,"  said  young  Holliday,  putting 
the  drawing  away  again.  "  But  the  course  of  it  doesn't 
run  smooth.  It's  the  old  story.  She's  monopolized,  as 
usual;  trammeled  by  a  rash  engagement  to  some  poor 
man  who  is  never  likely  to  get  money  enough  to  marry 
her.  It  was  lucky  I  heard  of  it  in  time,  or  I  should  cer- 
tainly have  risked  a  declaration  when  she  gave  me  that 
drawing.  Here,  doctor,  here  is  pen,  ink,  and  paper  all 
ready  for  you." 

"  When  she  gave  you  that  drawing  ?  Gave  it  ?  gave 
it  ?" 

He  repeated  the  words  slowly  to  himself,  and  sudden- 
ly closed  his  eyes.  A  momentary  distortion  passed 
across  his  face,  and  I  saw  one  of  his  hands  clutch  up  the 
bedclothes  and  squeeze  them  hard.  I  thought  he  was 
going  to  be  ill  again,  and  begged  that  there  might  be 
no  more  talking.  He  opened  his  eyes  when  I  spoke, 
fixed  them  once  more  searchingly  on  Arthur,  and  said, 
slowly  and  distinctly, 

"  You  like  her,  and  she  likes  you.  The  poor  man  may 
die  out  of  your  way.  Who  can  tell  that  she  may  not 
give  you  herself  as  well  as  her  drawing,  after  all  ?" 

Before  young  Holliday  could  answer,  he  turned  to 
me,  and  said  in  a  whisper,  "  Now  for  the  prescription." 
From  that  time,  though  he  spoke  to  Arthur  again,  he 
never  looked  at  him  more. 

When  I  had  written  the  prescription,  he  examined  it, 
approved  of  it,  and  then  astonished  us  both  by  abruptly 
wishing  us  good-night.  I  oifered  to  sit  up  with  him, 
and  he  shook  his  head.  Arthur  offered  to  sit  up  with 
him,  and  he  said,  shortly,  with  his  face  turned  away, 
"N"o."  I  insisted  on  having  somebody  left  to  watch 
him.  He  gave  way  when  he  found  I  was  determined, 


THE    ^L'EEN    OF    HEARTS.  251 

and  said  he  would  accept  the  services  of  the  waiter  at 
the  inn. 

"Thank  you  both,"  he  said,  as  we  rose  to  go.  "I 
have  one  last  favor  to  ask — not  of  you,  doctor,  for  I 
leave  you  to  exercise  your  professional  discretion,  but 
of  Mr.  Holliday."  His  eyes,  while  he  spoke,  still  rested 
steadily  on  me,  and  never  once  turned  toward  Arthur. 
"  I  beg  that  Mr.  Holliday  will  not  mention  to  any  one, 
least  of  all  to  his  father,  the  events  that  have  occurred 
and  the  words  that  have  passed  in  this  room.  I  entreat 
him  to  bury  me  in  his  memory  as,  but  for  him,  I  might 
have  been  buried  in  my  grave.  I  can  not  give  my  rea- 
sons for  making  this  strange  request.  I  can  only  im- 
plore him  to  grant  it." 

His  voice  faltered  for  the  first  time,  and  he  hid  his  face 
on  the  pillow.  Arthur,  completely  bewildered,  gave  the 
required  pledge.  I  took  young  Holliday  away  with  me 
immediately  afterward  to  the  house  of  my  friend,  de- 
termining to  go  back  to  the  inn  and  to  see  the  medical 
student  again  before  he  had  left  in  the  morning. 

I  returned  to  the  inn  at  eight  o'clock,  purposely  ab- 
staining from  waking  Arthur,  who  was  sleeping  off  the 
past  night's  excitement  on  one  of  my  friend's  sofas.  A 
suspicion  had  occurred  to  me,  as  soon  as  I  was  alone  in 
my  bedroom,  which  made  me  resolve  that  Holliday  and 
the  stranger  whose  life  he  had  saved  should  not  meet 
again,  if  I  could  prevent  it. 

I  have  already  alluded  to  certain  reports  or  scandals 
which  I  knew  of  relating  to  the  early  life  of  Arthur's  fa- 
ther. While  I  was  thinking,  in  my  bed,  of  what  had 
passed  at  the  inn ;  of  the  change  in  the  student's  pulse 
when  he  heard  the  name  of  Holliday ;  of  the  resemblance 
of  expression  that  I  had  discovered  between  his  face  and 
Arthur's ;  of  the  emphasis  he  had  laid  on  those  three 
words,  "  my  own  brother ;"  and  of  his  incomprehensible 


2o2  T1IK    IJUEEN    OF    HEAKTS. 

acknowledgment  of  his  own  illegitimacy — while  I  was 
thinking  of  these  things,  the  reports  I  have  mentioned 
suddenly  flew  into  my  mind,  and  linked  themselves  fast 
to  the  chain  of  my  previous  reflections.  Something 
within  me  whispered,  "It  is  best  that  those  two  young 
men  should  not  meet  again."  I  felt  it  before  I  slept ;  I 
felt  it  when  I  woke ;  and  I  went,  as  I  told  you,  alone  to 
the  inn  the  next  morning. 

I  had  missed  my  only  opportunity  of  seeing  my  name- 
less patient  again.  He  had  been  gone  nearly  an  hour 
when  I  inquired  for  him. 

I  have  now  told  you  every  thing  that  I  know  for  cer- 
tain in  relation  to  the  man  whom  I  brought  back  to  life 
in  the  double-bedded  room  of  the  inn  at  Doncaster. 
What  I  have  next  to  add  is  matter  for  inference  and  sur- 
mise, and  is  not,  strictly  speaking,  matter  of  fact. 

I  have  to  tell  you,  first,  that  the  medical  student  turn- 
ed out  to  be  strangely  and  unaccountably  right  in  assum- 
ing it  as  more  than  probable  that  Arthur  Holliday  would 
marry  the  young  lady  who  had  given  him  the  Avater-color 
drawing  of  the  landscape.  That  marriage  took  place  a 
little  more  than  a  year  after  the  events  occurred  which 
I  have  just  been  relating. 

The  young  couple  came  to  live  in  the  neighborhood  in 
which  I  was  then  established  in  practice.  I  was  present 
at  the  wedding,  and  was  rather  surprised  to  find  that 
Arthur  was  singularly  reserved  with  me,  both  before  and 
after  his  marriage,  on  the  subject  of  the  young  lady's 
prior  engagement.  He  only  referred  to  it  once  when  we 
were  alone,  merely  telling  me,  on  that  occasion,  that  his 
wife  had  done  all  that  honor  and  duty  required  of  her  in 
the  matter,  and  that  the  engagement  had  been  broken 
off  with  the  full  approval  of  her  parents.  I  never  heard 
more  from  him  than  this.  For  three  years  he  and  his 
wife  lived  together  happily.  At  the  expiration  of  that 


THK    tiUKEX    OF    1IEAKTS.  253 


time  the  symptoms  of  a  serious  illness  first  declared 
themselves  in  Mrs.  Arthur  Holliday.  It  turned  out  to 
be  a  long,  lingering,  hopeless  malady.  I  attended  her 
throughout.  We  had  been  great  friends  when  she  was 
well,  and  we  became  more  attached  to  each  other  than 
ever  when  she  was  ill.  I  had  many  long  and  interesting 
conversations  with  her  in  the  intervals  when  she  suffered 
least.  The  result  of  one  of  those  conversations  I  may 
briefly  relate,  leaving  you  to  draw  any  inferences  from  it 
that  you  please. 

The  interview  to  which  I  refer  occurred  shortly  before 
her  death. 

I  called  one  evening  as  usual,  and  found  her  alone, 
with  a  look  in  her  eyes  which  told  me  she  had  been  cry- 
ing. She  only  informed  me  at  first  that  she  had  been 
depressed  in  spirits,  but  by  little  and  little  she  became 
more  communicative,  and  confessed  to  me  that  she  had 
been  looking  over  some  old  letters  which  had  been  ad- 
dressed to  her,  before  she  had  seen  Arthur,  by  a  man  to 
whom  she  had  been  engaged  to  be  married.  I  asked  her 
how  the  engagement  came  to  be  broken  off.  She  replied 
that  it  had  not  been  broken  off,  but  that  it  had  died  out 
in  a  very  mysterious  way.  The  person  to  whom  she  was 
engaged  —  her  first  love,  she  called  him  —  was  very  poor, 
and  there  was  no  immediate  prospect  of  their  being  mar- 
ried. He  followed  my  profession,  and  went  abroad  to 
study.  They  had  corresponded  regularly  until  the  time 
when,  as  she  believed,  he  had  returned  to  England. 
From  that  period  she  heard  no  more  of  him.  He  was 
of  a  fretful,  sensitive  temperament,  and  she  feared  that 
she  might  have  inadvertently  done  or  said  something  to 
offend  him.  However  that  might  be,  he  had  never  writ- 
ten to  her  again,  and  after  waiting  a  year  she  had  mar- 
ried Arthur.  I  asked  when  the  first  estrangement  had 
begun,  and  found  that  the  time  at  which  she  ceased  to 


254  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

hear  any  thing  of  her  first  lover  exactly  corresponded 
with  the  time  at  which  I  had  been  called  in  to  my  mys- 
terious patient  at  The  Two  Robins  Inn. 

A  fortnight  after  that  conversation  she  died.  In  course 
of  time  Arthur  married  again.  Of  late  years  he  has  lived 
principally  in  London,  and  I  have  seen  little  or  nothing 
of  him. 

I  have  some  years  to  pass  over  before  I  can  approach 
to  any  thing  like  a  conclusion  of  this  fragmentary  nar- 
rative. And  even  when  that  later  period  is  reached,  the 
little  that  I  have  to  say  will  not  occupy  your  attention 
for  more  than  a  few  minutes. 

One  rainy  autumn  evening,  while  I  was  still  practicing 
as  a  country  doctor,  I  was  sitting  alone,  thinking  over  a 
case  then  under  my  charge,  which  sorely  perplexed  me, 
when  I  heard  a  low  knock  at  the  door  of  my  room. 

"  Come  in,"  I  cried,  looking  up  curiously  to  see  who 
wanted  me. 

After  a  momentary  delay,  the  lock  moved,  and  a  long, 
white,  bony  hand  stole  round  the  door  as  it  opened,  gen- 
tly pushing  it  over  a  fold  in  the  carpet  which  hindered 
it  from  working  freely  on  the  hinges.  The  hand  was 
followed  by  a  man  whose  face  instantly  struck  me  with 
a  very  strange  sensation.  There  was  something  familiar 
to  me  in  the  look  of  him,  and  yet  it  was  also  something 
that  suggested  the  idea  of  change. 

He  quietly  introduced  himself  as  "  Mr.  Lorn,"  present- 
ed to  me  some  excellent  professional  recommendations, 
and  proposed  to  fill  the  place,  then  vacant,  of  my  assist- 
ant. While  he  was  speaking  I  noticed  it  as  singular 
that  we  did  not  appear  to  be  meeting  each  other  like 
strangers,  and  that,  while  I  was  certainly  startled  at  see- 
ing him,  he  did  not  appear  to  be  at  all  startled  at  seeing 
me. 

It  was  on  the  tip  of  my  tongue  to  say  that  I  thought 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  255 

I  had  met  with  him  before.  But  there  was  something  in 
his  face,  and  something  in  my  own  recollections — I  can 
hardly  say  what — which  unaccountably  restrained  me 
from  speaking,  and  which  as  unaccountably  attracted  me 
to  him  at  once,  and  made  me  feel  ready  and  glad  to  ac- 
cept his  proposal. 

He  took  his  assistant's  place  on  that  very  day.  We 
got  on  together  as  if  we  had  been  old  friends  from  the 
first ;  but,  throughout  the  whole  time  of  his  residence  in 
my  house,  he  never  volunteered  any  confidences  on  the 
subject  of  his  past  life,  and  I  never  approached  the  for- 
bidden topic  except  by  hints,  which  he  resolutely  refused 
to  understand. 

I  had  long  had  a  notion  that  my  patient  at  the  inn 
might  have  been  a  natural  son  of  the  elder  Mr.  Holli- 
day's,  and  that  he  might  also  have  been  the  man  who 
was  engaged  to  Arthur's  first  wife.  And  now  another 
idea  occurred  to  me,  that  Mr.  Lorn  was  the  only  person 
in  existence  who  could,  if  he  chose,  enlighten  me  on 
both  those  doubtful  points.  But  he  never  did  choose, 
and  I  was  never  enlightened.  He  remained  with  me  till 
I  removed  to  London  to  try  my  fortune  there  as  a  physi- 
cian for  the  second  time,  and  then  he  went  his  way  and 
I  went  mine,  and  we  have  never  seen  one  another  since. 

I  can  add  no  more.  I  may  have  been  right  in  my 
suspicion,  or  I  may  have  been  wrong.  All  I  know  is 
that,  in  those  days  of  my  country  practice,  when  I  came 
home  late,  and  found  my  assistant  asleep,  and  woke  him, 
he  used  to  look,  in  coming  too,  wonderfully  like  the 
stranger  at  Doncaster  as  he  raised  himself  in  the  bed  on 
that  memorable  night. 


THE  SIXTH  DAY. 

AN  oppressively  mild  temperature,  and  steady,  soft, 
settled  rain — dismal  weather  for  idle  people  in  the  coun- 
try. Miss  Jessie,  after  looking  longingly  out  of  the  win- 
dow, resigned  herself  to  circumstances,  and  gave  up  all 
hope  of  a  ride.  The  gardener,  the  conservatory,  the 
rabbits,  the  raven,  the  housekeeper,  and,  as  a  last  re- 
source, even  the  neglected  piano,  were  all  laid  under  con- 
tribution to  help  her  through  the  time.  It  was  a  long 
day,  but,  thanks  to  her  own  talent  for  trifling,  she  con- 
trived to  occupy  it  pleasantly  enough. 

Still  no  news  of  my  son.  The  time  was  getting  on 
now,  and  it  was  surely  not  unreasonable  to  look  for  some 
tidings  of  him. 

To-day  Morgan  and  I  both  finished  our  third  and  last 
stories.  I  corrected  my  brother's  contribution  with  no 
very  great  difficulty  on  this  occasion,  and  numbered  it 
Nine.  My  own  story  came  next,  and  was  thus  accident- 
ally distinguished  as  the  last  of  the  series — Number  Ten. 
When  I  dropped  the  two  corresponding  cards  into  the 
bowl,  the  thought  that  there  would  be  now  no  more  to 
add  seemed  to  quicken  my  prevailing  sense  of  anxiety 
on  the  subject  of  George's  return.  A  heavy  depression 
hung  upon  my  spirits,  and  I  went  out  desperately  in  the 
rain  to  shake  my  mind  free  of  oppressing  influences  by 
dint  of  hard  bodily  exercise. 

The  number  drawn  this  evening  was  Three.  On  the 
production  of  the  corresponding  manuscript,  it  proved 
to  be  my  turn  to  read  again. 

"  I  can  promise  you  a  little  variety  to-night,"  I  said, 


258  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

addressing  our  fair  guest,  "if  I  can  promise  nothing 
else.  This  time  it  is  not  a  story  of  my  own  writing  that 
I  am  about  to  read,  but  a  copy  of  a  very  curious  corre- 
spondence which  I  found  among  my  professional  papers." 

Jessie's  countenance  fell.  "Is  there  no  story  in  it?" 
she  asked,  rather  discontentedly. 

u  Certainly  there  is  a  story  in  it,"  I  replied — "  a  story 
of  a  much  lighter  kind  than  any  we  have  yet  read,  and 
which  may,  on  that  account,  prove  acceptable,  by  way 
of  contrast  and  relief,  even  if  it  fails  to  attract  you  by 
other  means.  I  obtained  the  original  correspondence,  I 
must  tell  you,  from  the  office  of  the  Detective  Police  of 
London." 

Jessie's  face  brightened.  "That  promises  something 
to  begin  with,"  she  said. 

"  Some  years  since,"  I  continued,  "  there  was  a  desire 
at  head-quarters  to  increase  the  numbers  and  efficiency 
of  the  Detective  Police,  and  I  had  the  honor  of  being 
one  of  the  persons  privately  consulted  on  that  occasion. 
The  chief  obstacle  to  the  plan  proposed  lay  in  the  diffi- 
culty of  finding  new  recruits.  The  ordinary  rank  and 
file  of  the  police  of  London  are  sober,  trustworthy,  and 
courageous  men,  but  as  a  body  they  are  sadly  wanting 
in  intelligence.  Knowing  this,  the  authorities  took  into 
consideration  a  scheme,  which  looked  plausible  enough 
on  paper,  for  availing  themselves  of  the  services  of  that 
proverbially  sharp  class  of  men,  the  experienced  clerks 
in  attorney's  offices.  Among  the  persons  whose  advice 
was  sought  on  this  point,  I  was  the  only  one  who  dis- 
sented from  the  arrangement  proposed.  I  felt  certain 
that  the  really  experienced  clerks  intrusted  with  con- 
ducting private  investigations  and  hunting  up  lost  evi- 
dence, were  too  well  paid  and  too  independently  situated 
in  their  various  offices  to  care  about  entering  the  ranks 
of  the  Detective  Police,  and  submitting  themselves  to 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  259 

the  rigid  discipline  of  Scotland  Yard,  and  I  ventured  to 
predict  that  the  inferior  clerks  only,  whose  discretion 
was  not  to  be  trusted,  would  prove  to  be  the  men  who 
volunteered  for  detective  employment.  My  advice  was 
not  taken,  and  the  experiment  of  enlisting  the  clerks  was 
tried  in  two  or  three  cases.  I  was  naturally  interested 
in  the  result,  and  in  due  course  of  time  I  applied  for  in- 
formation in  the  right  quarter.  In  reply,  the  originals 
of  the  letters  of  which  I  am  now  about  to  read  the  copies 
\vere  sent  to  me,  with  an  intimation  that  the  correspond- 
ence in  this  particular  instance  offered  a  fair  specimen  of 
the  results  of  the  experiment  in  the  other  cases.  The 
letters  amused  me,  and  I  obtained  permission  to  copy 
them  before  I  sent  them  back.  You  will  now  hear, 
therefore,  by  his  own  statement,  how  a  certain  attor- 
ney's clerk  succeeded  in  conducting  a  very  delicate  in- 
vestigation, and  how  the  regular  members  of  the  Detect- 
ive Police  contrived  to  help  him  through  his  first  ex- 
periment." 


260  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 


OF 

THE  BITER   BIT. 


Extracted  from  the  Correspondence  of  the  London 
Police. 

FROM   CHIEF  INSPECTOR  THEAKSTONE,  OP  THE  DETECTIVE 
POLICE,  TO    SERGEANT   BULMER,  OF   THE   SAME    FORCE. 

London,  4th  July,  18 — . 

SERGEANT  BULMER, — This  is  to  inform  you  that  you 
are  wanted  to  assist  in  looking  up  a  ease  of  importance, 
which  will  require  all  the  attention  of  an  experienced 
member  of  the  force.  The  matter  of  the  robbery  on 
which  you  are  now  engaged  you  will  please  to  shift  over 
to  the  young  man  who  brings  you  this  letter.  You  will 
tell  him  all  the. circumstances  of  the  case,  just  as  they 
stand  ;  you  will  put  him  up  to  the  progress  you  have 
made  (if  any)  toward  detecting  the  person  or  persons  by 
whom  the  money  has  been  stolen ;  and  you  will  leave 
him  to  make  the  best  he  can  of  the  matter  now  in  your 
hands.  He  is  to  have  the  whole  responsibility  of  the 
case,  and  the  whole  credit  of  his  success  if  he  brings  it 
to  a  proper  issue. 

So  much  for  the  orders  that  I  am  desired  to  commu- 
nicate to  you. 

A  word  in  your  ear,  next,  about  this  new  man  who  is 
to  take  your  place.  His  name  is  Matthew  Sharpin,  and 
he  is  to  have  the  chance  given  him  of  dashing  into  our 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  261 

office  at  one  jump — supposing  he  turns  out  strong  enough 
to  take  it.  You  will  naturally  ask  me  how  he  comes  by 
this  privilege.  I  can  only  tell  you  that  he  has  some  un- 
commonly strong  interest  to  back  him  in  certain  high 
quarters,  which  you  and  I  had  better  not  mention  except 
under  our  breaths.  He  has  been  a  lawyer's  clerk,  and 
he  is  wonderfully  conceited  in  his  opinion  of  himself,  as 
well  as  mean  and  underhand  to  look  at.  According  to 
his  own  account,  he  leaves  his  old  trade  and  joins  ours 
of  his  own  free  -will  and  preference.  You  will  no  more 
believe  that  than  I  do.  My  notion  is,  that  he  has  man- 
aged to  ferret  out  some  private  information  in  connec- 
tion with  the  affairs  of  one  of  his  master's  clients,  which 
makes  him  rather  an  awkward  customer  to  keep  in  the 
office  for  the  future,  and  which,  at  the  same  time,  gives 
him  hold  enough  over  his  employer  to  make  it  dangerous 
to  drive  him  into  a  corner  by  turning  him  away.  I  think 
the  giving  him  this  unheard-of  chance  among  us  is,  in 
plain  words,  pretty  much  like  giving  him  hush-money  to 
keep  him  quiet.  However  that  may  be,  Mr.  Matthew 
Sharpin  is  to  have  the  case  now  in  your  hands,  and  if  he 
succeeds  with  it  he  pokes  his  ugly  nose  into  our  office  as 
sure  as  fate.  I  put  you  up  to  this,  sergeant,  so  that  you 
may  not  stand  in  your  own  light  by  giving  the  new  man 
any  cause  to  complain  of  you  at  head-quarters,  and  re- 
main yours,  FRANCIS  THEAKSTONE. 

FROM   MR.  MATTHEW   SHARPIN   TO   CHIEF   INSPECTOR 
THEAKSTONE. 

London,  5th  July,  18 — . 

DEAR  SIR, — Having  now  been  favored  with  the  neces- 
sary instructions  from  Sergeant  Bulmer,  I  beg  to  remind 
you  of  certain  directions  which  I  have  received  relating 
to  the  report  of  my  future  proceedings  which  I  am  to 
prepare  for  examination  at  head-quarters. 

12 


262  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

The  object  of  my  writing,  and  of  your  examining  what 
I  have  written  before  you  send  it  to  the  higher  authori- 
ties, is,  I  am  informed,  to  give  me,  as  an  untried  hand, 
the  benefit  of  your  advice  in  case  I  want  it  (which  I  ven- 
ture to  think  I  shall  not)  at  any  stage  of  my  proceedings. 
As  the  extraordinary  circumstances  of  the  case  on  which 
I  am  now  engaged  make  it  impossible  for  me  to  absent 
myself  from  the  place  where  the  robbery  was  committed 
until  I  have  made  some  progress  toward  discovering  the 
thief,  I  am  necessarily  precluded  from  consulting  you 
personally.  Hence  the  necessity  of  my  writing  down 
the  various  details,  which  might,  perhaps,  be  better  com- 
municated by  word  of  mouth.  This,  if  I  am  not  mis- 
taken, is  the  position  in  which  we  are  now  placed.  T 
state  my  own  impressions  on  the  subject  in  writing,  in 
order  that  we  may  clearly  understand  each  other  at  the 
outset ;  and  have  the  honor  to  remain  your  obedient 
servant,  MATTHEW  SHARPIN. 

FROM    CHIEF    INSPECTOR    THEAKSTONE    TO    MR.  MATTHEW 
SHARPIN. 

London,  5th  July,  18 — . 

SIR, — You  have  begun  by  wasting  time,  ink,  and  pa- 
per. We  both  of  us  perfectly  well  knew  the  position  we 
stood  in  toward  each  other  when  I  sent  you  with  my 
letter  to  Sergeant  Bulmer.  There  was  not  the  least  need 
to  repeat  it  in  writing.  Be  so  good  as  to  employ  your 
pen  in  future  on  the  business  actually  in  hand. 

You  have  now  three  separate  matters  on  which  to 
write  me.  First,  you  have  to  draw  up  a  statement  of 
your  instructions  received  from  Sergeant  Bulmer,  in  or- 
der to  show  us  that  nothing  has  escaped  your  memory, 
and  that  you  are  thoroughly  acquainted  with  all  the  cir- 
cumstances of  the  case  which  has  been  intrusted  to  you. 
Secondly,  you  are  to  inform  me  what  it  is  you  propose  to 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  263 

do.  Thirdly,  you  are  to  report  every  inch  of  your  prog- 
ress (if  you  make  any)  from  day  to  day,  and,  if  need 
be.  from  hour  to  hour  as  well.  This  is  your  duty.  As 
to  what  nty  duty  may  be,  when  I  want  you  to  remind 
me  of  it,  I  will  write  and  tell  you  so.  In  the  mean  time, 
I  remain,  yours,  FRANCIS  THEAKSTONE. 

FKOM    MR.  MATTHEW   SHARPIN   TO    CHIEF    INSPECTOR 
THEAKSTONE. 

London,  6th  July,  1 8 — . 

SIR, — You  are  rather  an  elderly  person,  and,  as  such, 
naturally  inclined  to  be  a  little  jealous  of  men  like  me, 
who  are  in  the  prime  of  their  lives  and  their  faculties. 
Under  these  circumstances,  it  is  my  duty  to  be  consid- 
erate toward  you,  and  not  to  bear  too  hardly  on  your 
small  failings.  I  decline,  therefore,  altogether  to  take 
offense  at  the  tone  of  your  letter ;  I  give  you  the  full 
benefit  of  the  natural  generosity  of  my.  nature;  I  sponge 
the  very  existence  of  your  surly  communication  out  of 
my  memory — in  short,  Chief  Inspector  Theakstone,  I  for- 
give you,  and  proceed  to  business. 

My  first  duty  is  to  draw  up  a  full  statement  of  the  in- 
structions I  have  received  from  Sere-cant  Bulmer.  Here 

O 

they  are  at  your  service,  according  to  my  version  of 
them. 

At  number  Thirteen  Rutherford  Street,  Soho,  there  is 
a  stationer's  shop.  It  is  kept  by  one  Mr.  Yatman.  He 
is  a  married  man,  but  has  no  family.  Besides  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Yatman,  the  other  inmates  in  the  house  are  a  lodger, 
a  young  single  man  named  Jay,  who  occupies  the  front 
room  on  the  second  floor — a  shopman,  who  sleeps  in 
one  of  the  attics,  and  a  servant-of-all-work,  whose  bed  is 
in  the  back  kitchen.  Once  a  week  a  charwoman  comes 
to  help  this  servant.  These  are  all  the  persons  who,  on 
ordinary  occasions,  have  means  of  access  to  the  interior 


264  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

of  the  house,  placed,  as  a  matter  of  course,  at  their  dis- 
posal. 

Mr.  Yatman  has  been  in  business  for  many  years,  car- 
rying on  his  affairs  prosperously  enough  to  realize  a  hand- 
some independence  for  a  person  in  his  position.  Un- 
fortunately for  himself,  he  endeavored  to  increase  the 
amount  of  his  property  by  speculating.  He  ventured 
boldly  in  his  investments ;  luck  went  against  him ;  and 
rather  less  than  two  years  ago  he  found  himself  a  poor 
man  again.  All  that  was  saved  out  of  the  wreck  of  his 
property  was  the  sum  of  two  hundred  pounds. 

Although  Mr.  Yatman  did  his  best  to  meet  his  altered 
circumstances,  by  giving  up  many  of  the  luxuries  and 
comforts  to  which  he  and  his  wife  had  been  accustomed, 
he  found  it  impossible  to  retrench -so  far  as  to  allow  of 
putting  by  any  money  from  the  income  produced  by  his 
shop.  The  business  has  been  declining  of  late  years,  the 
cheap  advertising  stationers  having  done  it  injury  with 
the  public.  Consequently,  up  to  the  last  week,  the  only 
surplus  property  possessed  by  Mr.  Yatman  consisted  of 
the  two  hundred  pounds  which  had  been  recovered  from 
the  wreck  of  his  fortune.  This  sum  was  placed  as  a  de- 
posit in  a  joint-stock  bank  of  the  highest  possible  char- 
acter. 

Eight  days  ago  Mr.  Yatman  and  his  lodger,  Mr.  Jay, 
held  a  conversation  on  the  subject  of  the  commercial  dif- 
ficulties which  are  hampering  trade  in  all  directions 
at  the  present  time.  Mr.  Jay  (who  lives  by  supplying 
the  newspapers  with  short  paragraphs  relating  to  acci- 
dents, offenses,  and  brief  records  of  remarkable  occur- 
rences in  general — who  is,  in  short,  what  they  call  a 
penny-a-liner)  told  his  landlord  that  he  had  been  in  the 
city  that  day  and  heard  unfavorable  rumors  on  the  sub- 
ject of  the  joint-stock  banks.  The  rumors  to  which  he 
alluded  had  already  reached  the  ears  of  Mr.  Yatman  from 


THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS.  265 

other  quarters,  and  the  confirmation  of  them  by  his  lodger 
had  such  an  effect  on  his  mind — predisposed  as  it  was  to 
alarm  by  the  experience  of  his  former  losses — that  he  re- 
solved to  go  at  once  to  the  bank  and  withdraw  his  de- 
posit. It  was  then  getting  on  toward  the  end  of  the  aft- 
ernoon, and  he  arrived  just  in  time  to  receive  his  money 
before  the  bank  closed. 

.  He  received  the  deposit  in  bank-notes  of  the  following 
amounts  :  one  fifty-pound  note,  three  twenty-pound  notes, 
six  ten-pound  notes,  and  six  five-pound  notes.  His  ob- 
ject in  drawing  the  money  in  this  form  was  to  have  it 
ready  to  lay  out  immediately  in  trifling  loans,  on  good 
security,  among  the  small  tradespeople  of  his  district, 
some  of  whom  are  sorely  pressed  for  the  very  means  of 
existence  at  the  present  time.  Investments  of  this  kind 
seemed  to  Mr.  Yatman  to  be  the  most  safe  and  the  most 
profitable  on  which  he  could  now  venture. 

He  brought  the  money  back  in  an  envelope  placed  in 
his  breast  pocket,  and  asked  his  shopman,  on  getting 
home,  to  look  for  a  small,  flat,  tin  cash-box,  which  had 
not  been  used  for  years,  and  which,  as  Mr.  Yatman  re- 
membered it,  was  exactly  of  the  right  size  to  hold  the 
bank-notes.  For  some  time  the  cash-box  was  searched 
for  in  vain.  Mr.  Yatman  called  to  his  wife  to  know  if 
she  had  any  idea  where  it  was.  The  question  was  over- 
heard by  the  servant-of-all-work,  who  was  taking  up  the 
tea-tray  at  the  time,  and  by  Mr.  Jay,  who  was  coming 
clown  stairs  on  his  way  out  to  the  theatre.  Ultimate1}' 
the  cash-box  was  found  by  the  shopman.  Mr.  Yatman 
placed  the  bank-notes  in  it,  secured  them  by  a  padlock, 
and  put  the  box  in  his  coat  pocket.  It  stuck  out  of  the 
coat  pocket  a  very  little,  but  enough  to  be  seen.  Mr. 
Yatman  remained  at  home,  up  stairs,  all  that  evening. 
No  visitors  called.  At  eleven  o'clock  he  went  to  bed, 
and  put  the  cash-box  under  his  pillow. 


266  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

When  he  and  his  wife  woke  the  next  morning  the  box 
was  gone.  Payment  of  the  notes  was  immediately  stop- 
ped at  the  Bank  of  England,  but  no  news  of  the  money 
has  been  heard  of  since  that  time. 

So  far  the  circumstances  of  the  case  are  perfectly  clear. 
They  point  unmistakably  to  the  conclusion  that  the  rob- 
bery must  have  been  committed  by  some  person  living 
in  the  house.  Suspicion  falls,  therefore,  upon  the  serv- 
ant-of-all-work,  upon  the  shopman,  and  upon  Mr.  Jay. 
The  two  first  knew  that  the  cash-box  was  being  inquired 
for  by  their  master,  but  did  not  know  what  it  was  he 
wanted  to  put  into  it.  They  would  assume,  of  course, 
that  it  was  money.  They  both  had  opportunities  (the 
servant  when  she  took  away  the  tea,  and  the  shopman 
when  he  came,  after  shutting  up,  to  give  the  keys  of  the 
till  to  his  master)  of  seeing  the  cash-box  in  Mr.  Yatman's 
pocket,  and  of  inferring  naturally,  from  its  position  there, 
that  he  intended  to  take  it  into  his  bedroom  with  him  at 
night. 

Mr.  Jay,  on  the  other  hand,  had  been  told,  during  the 
afternoon's  conversation  on  the  siibject  of  joint-stock 
banks,  that  his  landlord  had  a  deposit  of  two  hundred 
pounds  in  one  of  them.  He  also  knew  that  Mr.  Yatrnan 
left  him  with  the  intention  of  drawing  that  money  out ; 
and  he  heard  the  inquiry  for  the  cash-box  afterward, 
when  he  was  coming  down  stairs.  He  must,  therefore, 
have  inferred  that  the  money  was  in  the  house,  and  that 
the  cash-box  was  the  receptacle  intended  to  contain  it. 
That  he  could  have  had  any  idea,  however,  of  the  place 
in  which  Mr.  Yatman  intended  to  keep  it  for  the  night  is 
impossible,  seeing  that  he  went  out  before  the  box  was 
found,  and  did  not  return  till  his  landlord  was  in  bed. 
Consequently,  if  he  committed  the  robbery,  he  must  have 
gone  into  the  bedroom  purely  on  speculation. 

Speaking  of  the  bedroom  reminds  me  of  the  necessity 


THE    QUKEX    OF    HEARTS.  267 

of  noticing  the  situation  of  it  in  the  house,  and  the  means 
that  exist  of  gaining  easy  access  to  it  at  any  hour  of  the 
night. 

The  room  in  question  is  the  back  room  on  the  first 
floor.  In  consequence  of  Mrs.  Yatman's  constitutional 
nervousness  on  the  subject  of  fire,  which  makes  her  ap- 
prehend being  burned  alive  in  her  room,  in  case  of  acci- 
dent, by  the  hampering  of  the  lock  if  the  key  is  turned 
in  it,  her  husband  has  never  been  accustomed  to  lock  the 
bedroom  door.  Both  he  and  his  wife  are,  by  their  own 
admission,  heavy  sleepers ;  consequently,  the  risk  to  be 
run  by  any  evil-disposed  persons  wishing  to  plunder  the 
bedroom  was  of  the  most  trifling  kind.  They  could  en- 
ter the  room  by  merely  turning  the  handle  of  the  door ; 
and,  if  they  moved  with  ordinary  caution,  there  was  no 
fear  of  their  waking  the  sleepers  inside.  This  fact  is  of  im- 
portance. It  strengthens  our  conviction  that  the  money 
must  have  been  taken  by  one  of  the  inmates  of  the  house, 
because  it  tends  to  show  that  the  robbery,  in  this  case, 
might  have  been  committed  by  persons  not  possessed  of 
the  superior  vigilance  and  cunning  of  the  experienced 
thief. 

Such  are  the  circumstances,  as  they  were  related  to 
Sergeant  Bulmer  when  he  was  first  called  in  to  discover 
the  guilty  parties,  and,  if  possible,  to  recover  the  lost 
bank-notes.  The  strictest  inquiry  which  he  could  insti- 
tute failed  of  producing  the  smallest  fragment  of  evidence 
against  any  of  the  persons  on  whom  suspicion  naturally 
fell.  Their  language  and  behavior  on  being  informed  of 
the  robbery  was  perfectly  consistent  with  the  language 
and  behavior  of  innocent  people.  Sergeant  Bulmer  felt 
from  the  first  that  this  was  a  case  for  private  inquiry  and 
secret  observation.  He  began  by  recommending  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Yatman  to  affect  a  feeling  of  perfect  confidence 
in  the  innocence  of  the  persons  living  under  their  roof, 


268  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

and  he  then  opened  the  campaign  by  employing  himself 
in  following -the  goings  and  comings,  and  in  discovering 
the  friends,  the  habits,  a.nd  the  secrets  of  the  maid-of-all- 
work. 

Three  days  and  nights  of  exertion  on  his  own  part,  and 
on  that  of  others  who  were  competent  to  assist  his  inves- 
tigations, were  enough  to  satisfy  him  that  there  Avas  no 
sound  cause  for  suspicion  against  the  girl. 

He  next  practiced  the  same  precaution  in  relation  to 
the  shopman.  There  was  more  difficulty  and  uncertain- 
ty in  privately  clearing  up  this  person's  character  with- 
out his  knowledge,  but  the  obstacles  were  at  last 
smoothed  away  with  tolerable  success;  and,  though 
there  is  not  the  same  amount  of  certainty  in  this  case 
which  there  was  in  the  case  of  the  girl,  there  is  still  fail- 
reason  for  supposing  that  the  shopman  has  had  nothing 
to  do  with  the  robbery  of  the  cash-box. 

As  a  necessary  consequence  of  these  proceedings,  the 
range  of  suspicion  now  becomes  limited  to  the  lodger, 
Mr.  Jay. 

When  I  presented  your  letter  of  introduction  to  Ser- 
geant Bulmer,  he  had  already  made  some  inquiries  on  the 
subject  of  this  young  man.  The  result,  so  far,  has  not 
been  at  all  favorable.  Mr.  Jay's  habits  are  irregular ;  ho 
frequents  public  houses,  and  seems  to  be  familiarly  ac- 
quainted with  a  great  many  dissolute  characters ;  he  is 
in  debt  to  most  of  the  tradespeople  whom  he  employs ; 
he  has  not  paid  his  rent  to  Mr.  Yatmaii  for  the  last 
month ;  yesterday  evening  he  came  home  excited  by 
liquor,  and  last  week  he  was  seen  talking  to  a  prize- 
fighter ;  in  short,  though  Mr.  Jay  does  call  himself  a 
journalist,  in  virtue  of  his  penny-a-line  contributions  to 
the  newspapers,  he  is  a  young  man  of  low  tastes,  vulgar 
manners,  and  bad  habits.  Nothing  has  yet  been  discov- 
ered in  relation  to  him  which  redounds  to  his  credit  in 
the  smallest  degree, 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  269 

I  have  now  reported,  down  to  the  very  last  details,  all 
the  particulars  communicated  to  me  by  Sergeant  Buhner. 
I  believe  you  will  not  find  an  omission  any  where;  and 
1  think  you  will  admit,  though  you  are  prejudiced  against 
me,  that  a  clearer  statement  of  facts  was  never  laid  be- 
fore you  than  the  statement  I  have  now  made.  My  next 
duty  is  to  tell  you  what  I  propose  to  do  now  that  the 
case  is  confided  to  my  hands. 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  clearly  my  business  to  take  up 
the  case  at  the  point  where  Sergeant  Bulmer  has  left  it. 
On  his  authority,  I  am  justified  in  assuming  that  I  have 
no  need  to  trouble  myself  about  the  maid-of-all-work  and 
the  shopman.  Their  characters  are  now  to  be  considered 
as  cleared  up.  What  remains  to  be  privately  investi- 
gated is  the  question  of  the  guilt  or  innocence  of  Mr. 
Jay.  Before  we  give  up  the  notes  for  lost,  we  must 
make  sure,  if  we  can,  that  he  knows  nothing  about  them. 

This  is  the  plan  that  I  have  adopted,  with  the  full  ap- 
proval of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Yatman,  for  discovering  whether 
Mr.  Jay  is  or  is  not  the  person  who  has  stolen  the  cash- 
box : 

I  propose  to-day  to  present  myself  at  the  house  in  the 
character  of  a  young  man  who  is  looking  for  lodgings. 
The  back  room  on  the  second  noor  will  be  shown  to  me 
as  the  room  to  let,  and  I  shall  establish  myself  there  to- 
night as  a  person  from  the  country  who  has  come  to 
London  to  look  for  a  situation  in  a  respectable  shop  or 
office. 

By  this  means  I  shall  be  living  next  to  the  room  occu- 
pied by  Mr.  Jay.  The  partition  between  us  is  mere  lath 
and  plaster.  I  shall  make  a  small  hole  in  it,  near  the 
cornice,  through  which  I  can  see  what  Mr.  Jay  does  in 
his  room,  and  hear  every  word  that  is  said  when  any 
friend  happens  to  call  on  him.  Whenever  he  is  at  home, 
I. shall  be  at  my  post  of  observation ;  whenever  he  goes 

12" 


270  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

out,  I  shall  be  after  him.  By  employing  these  means  of 
watching  him,  I  believe  I  may  look  forward  to  the  dis- 
covery of  his  secret — if  he  knows  any  thing  about  the 
lost  bank-notes — as  to  a  dead  certainty. 

What  you  may  think  of  my  plan  of  observation  I  can 
not  undertake  to  say.  It  appears  to  me  to  unite  the  in- 
valuable merits  of  boldness  and  simplicity.  Fortified  by 
this  conviction,  I  close  the  present  communication  with 
feelings  of  the  most  sanguine  description  in  regard  to  the 
future,  and  remain  your  obedient  servant, 

MATTHEW  SHARPIN. 

FROM  THE  SAME  TO  THE  SAME. 

7th  July. 

SIR, — As  you  have  not  honored  me  with  any  answer 
to  my  last  communication,  I  assume  that,  in  spite  of  your 
prejudices  against  me,  it  has  produced  the  favorable  im- 
pression on  your  mind  which  I  ventured  to  anticipate. 
Gratified  and  encouraged  beyond  measure  by  the  token 
of  approval  which  your  eloquent  silence  conveys  to  me, 
I  proceed  to  report  the  progress  that  has  been  made  in 
the  course  of  the  last  twenty-four  hours. 

I  am  now  comfortably  established  next  door  to  Mr. 
Jay,  and  I  am  delighted  to  say  that  I  have  two  holes  in 
the  partition  instead  of  one.  My  natural  sense  of  humor 
has  led  me  into  the  pardonable  extravagance  of  giving 
them  both  appropriate  names.  One  I  call  my  peep-hole, 
and  the  other  my  pipe-hole.  The  name  of  the  first  ex- 
plains itself;  the  name  of  the  second  refers  to  a  small  tin 
pipe  or  tube  inserted  in  the  hole,  and  twisted  so  that  the 
mouth  of  it  comes  close  to  my  ear  while  I  am  standing 
at  my  post  of  observation.  Thus,  wrhile  I  am  looking  at 
Mr.  Jay  through  my  peep-hole,  I  can  hear  every  word  that 
may  be  spoken  in  his  room  through  my  pipe-hole. 

Perfect  candor — a  virtue  which  I  have  possessed  from 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  27 1 

my  childhood — compels  me  to  acknowledge,  before  I  go 
any  farther,  that  the  ingenious  notion  of  adding  a  pipe- 
hole  to  my  proposed  peep-hole  originated  with  Mrs.  Yat- 
man.  This  lady — a  most  intelligent  and  accomplished 
person,  simple,  and  yet  distinguished  in  her  manners,  has 
entered  into  all  my  little  plans  with  an  enthusiasm  and 
intelligence  which  I  can  not  too  highly  praise.  Mr.  Yat- 
man  is  so  cast  down  by  his  loss  that  he  is  quite  incapable 
of  affording  me  any  assistance.  Mrs.  Yatman,  who  is 
evidently  most  tenderly  attached  to  him,  feels  her  hus- 
band's sad  condition  of  mind  even  more  acutely  than  she 
feels  the  loss  of  the  money,  and  is  mainly  stimulated  to 
exertion  by  her  desire  to  assist  in  raising  him  from  the 
miserable  state  of  prostration  into  which  he  has  now 
fallen. 

"  The  money,  Mr.  Sharpin,"  she  said  to  me  yesterday 
evening,  with  tears  in  her  eyes,  "  the  money  may  be  re- 
gained by  rigid  economy  and  strict  attention  to  business. 
It  is  my  husband's  wretched  state  of  mind  that  makes 
me  so  anxious  for  the  discovery  of  the  thief.  I  may  be 
wrong,  but  I  felt  hopeful  of  success  as  soon  as  you  en- 
tered the  house ;  and  I  believe  that,  if  the  wretch  who 
robbed  us  is  to  be  found,  you  are  the  man  to  discover 
him."  I  accepted  this  gratifying  compliment  in  the  spirit 
in  which  it  was  offered,  firmly  believing  that  I  shall  be 
found,  sooner  or  later,  to  have  thoroughly  deserved  it. 

Let  me  now  return  to  business — that  is  to  say,  to  my 
peep-hole  and  my  pipe-hole. 

I  have  enjoyed  some  hours  of  calm  observation  of  Mr. 
Jay.  Though  rarely  at  home,  as  I  understand  from  Mrs. 
Yatman,  on  ordinary  occasions,  he  has  been  in-doors  the 
whole  of  this  day.  That  is  suspicious,  to  begin  with.  I 
have  to  report,  farther,  that  he  rose  at  a  late  hour  this 
morning  (always  a  bad  sign  in  a  young  man),  and  that 
he  lost  a  great  deal  of  time,  after  he  was  up,  in  yawning 


272  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

and  complaining  to  himself  of  headache.  Like  other  de- 
bauched characters,  he  ate  little  or  nothing  for  breakfast. 
His  next  proceeding  was  to  smoke  a  pipe — a  dirty  clay 
pipe,  which  a  gentleman  would  have  been  ashamed  to  put 
between  his  lips.  When  he  had  done  smoking  lie  took 
out  pen,  ink,  and  paper,  and  sat  down  to  write  with  a 
groan — whether  of  remorse  for  having  taken  the  bank- 
notes, or  of  disgust  at  the  task  before  him,  I  am  unable  to 
say.  After  writing  a  few  lines  (too  far  away  from  my 
peep-hole  to  give  me  a  chance  of  reading  over  his  shoul- 
der), he  leaned  back  in  his  chair,  and  amused  himself  by 
humming  the  tunes  of  popular  songs.  I  recognized  "  My 
Mary  Anne,"  "  Bobbin'  around,"  and  "  Old  Dog  Tray," 
among  other  melodies.  Whether  these  do  or  do  not 
represent  secret  signals  by  which  he  communicates  with 
his  accomplices  remains  to  be  seen.  After  he  had  amused 
himself  for  some  time  by  humming,  he  got  up  and  began 
to  walk  about  the  room,  occasionally  stopping  to  add  a 
sentence  to  the  paper  on  his  desk.  Before  long  he  went 
to  a  locked  cupboard  and  opened  it.  I  strained  my  eyes 
eagerly,  in  expectation  of  making  a  discovery.  I  saw  him 
take  something  carefully  out  of  the  cupboard — he  turned 
round — and  it  was  only  a  pint  bottle  of  brandy !  Having 
drunk  some  of  the  liquor,  this  extremely  indolent  repro- 
bate lay  down  on  his  bed  again,  and  in  five  minutes  was 
fast  asleep. 

After  hearing  him  snoring  for  at  least  two  hours,  I  was 
recalled  to  my  peep-hole  by  a  knock  at  his  door.  He 
jumped  up  and  opened  it  with  suspicious  activity. 

A  very  small  boy,  with  a  very  dirty  face,  walked  in, 
said,  "Please,  sir,  they're  waiting  for  you,"  sat  down 
with  his  legs  a  long  wray  from  the  ground,  and  instantly 
fell  asleep !  Mr.  Jay  swore  an  oath,  tied  a  wet  towel 
round  his  head,  and,  going  back  to  his  paper,  began  to 
cover  it  with  writing  as  fast  as  his  fingers  could  move 


THE    Ql'EEX    OF    HEARTS.  273 

the  pen.  Occasionally  getting  up  to  dip  the  towel  in 
water  and  tie  it  on  again,  he  continued  at  this  employ- 
ment for  nearly  three  hours ;  then  folded  up  the  leaves 
of  writing,  woke  the  boy,  and  gave  them  to  him,  with 
this  remarkable  expression:  "  Now,  then,  young  sleepy- 
head, quick  march  !  If  you  see  the  governor,  tell  him  to 
have  the  money  ready  for  me  when  I  call  for  it."  The 
boy  grinned  and  disappeared.  I  was  sorely  tempted  to 
follow  " sleepy- head,"  but,  on  inflection,  considered  it 
safest  still  to  keep  my  eye  on  the  proceedings  of  Mr.  Jay. 

In  half  an  hour's  time  he  put  on  his  hat  and  walked 
out.  Of  course,  I  put  on  my  hat  and  walked  out  also. 
As  I  went  down  stairs  I  passed  Mrs.  Yatman  going  up. 
The  lady  has  been  kind  enough  to  undertake,  by  previous 
arrangement  between  us,  to  search  Mr.  Jay's  room  while 
he  is  out  of  the  way,  and  while  I  am  necessarily  engaged 
in  the  pleasing  duty  of  following  him  wherever  he  goes. 
On  the  occasion  to  which  I  now  refer,  he  walked  straight 
to  the  nearest  tavern,  and  ordered  a  couple  of  mutton- 
chops  for  his  dinner.  I  placed  myself  in  the  next  box  to 
him,  and  ordered  a  couple  of  mutton-chops  for  my  dinner. 
Before  I  had  been  in  the  room  a  minute,  a  young  man  of 
highly  suspicious  manners  and  appearance,  sitting  at  a 
table  opposite;  took  his  glass  of  porter  in  his  hand  and 
joined  Mr.  Jay.  I  pretended  to  be  reading  the  news- 
paper, and  listened,  as  in  duty  bound,  with  all  my  might. 

"Jack  has  been  here  inquiring  after  you,"  says  the 
young  man. 

"  Did  he  leave  any  message  ?"  asks  Mr.  Jay. 

"  Yes,"  says  the  other.  "  He  told  me,  if  I  met  with 
you,  to  say  that  he  wished  very  particularly  to  see  you 
to-night,  and  that  he  would  give  you  a  look  in  at  Ruther- 
ford Street  at  seven  o'clock." 

"  All  right,"  says  Mr.  Jay.  "  I'll  get  back  in  time  to 
see  him." 


274  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

Upon  this,  the  suspicious-looking  young  man  finished 
his  porter,  and  saying  that  he  was  rather  in  a  hurry,  took 
leave  of  his  friend  (perhaps  I  should  not  be  wrong  if  I 
said  his  accomplice  ?),  and  left  the  room. 

At  twenty-five  minutes  and  a  half  past  six — in  these 
serious  cases  it  is  important  to  be  particular  about  time 
— Mr.  Jay  finished  his  chops  and  paid  his  bill.  At  twen- 
ty-six minutes  and  three  quarters  I  finished  my  chops 
and  paid  mine.  In  ten  minutes  more  I  was  inside  the 
house  in  Rutherford  Street,  and  was  received  by  Mrs. 
Yatman  in  the  passage.  That  charming  woman's  face 
exhibited  an  expression  of  melancholy  and  disappoint- 
ment which  it  quite  grieved  me  to  see. 

"  I  am  afraid,  ma'am,"  says  I,  "  that  you  have  not  hit 
on  any  little  criminating  discovery  in  the  lodger's  room  ?" 

She  shook  her  head  and  sighed.  It  was  a  soft,  languid, 
fluttering  sigh — and,  upon  my  life,  it  quite  upset  me. 
For  the  moment  I  forgot  business,  and  burned  with  envy 
of  Mr.  Yatman. 

"Don't  despair,  ma'am,"  I  said,  with  an  insinuating 
mildness  which  seemed  to  touch  her.  "  I  have  heard  a 
mysterious  conversation — I  know  of  a  guilty  appoint- 
ment— and  I  expect  great  things  from  my  peep-hole  and 
my  pipe-hole  to-night.  Pray  don't  be  alarmed,  but  I 
think  we  are  on  the  brink  of  a  discovery." 

Here  my  enthusiastic  devotion  to  business  got  the  bet- 
ter part  of  my  tender  feelings.  I  looked — winked — nod- 
ded— left  her. 

When  I  got  back  to  my  observatory,  I  found  Mr.  Jay 
digesting  his  mutton-chops  in  an  arrn-chair,  with  his  pipe 
in  his  mouth.  On  his  table  were  two  tumblers,  a  jug  of 
water,  and  the  pint  bottle  of  brandy.  It  was  then  close 
upon  seven  o'clock.  As  the  hour  struck  the  person  de- 
scribed as  "Jack"  walked  in. 

He  looked  agitated — I  am  happy  to  say  he  looked  vio« 


TJIK    Ul  KKN     OK    1IKAKTS.  275 

lently  agitated.  The  cheerful  glo\v  of  anticipated  success 
diffused  itself  (to  use  a  strong  expression)  all  over  me, 
from  head  to  foot.  With  breathless  interest  I  looked 
through  my  peep-hole,  and  saw  the  visitor — the  "Jack" 
of  this  delightful  case — sit  down,  facin'g  me,  at  the  oppo- 
site side  of  the  table  to  Mr.  Jay.  Milking  allowance  for 
the  difference  in  expression  which  their  countenances  j-ist 
now  happened  to  exhibit,  these  two  abandoned  villains 
were  so  much  alike  in  other  respects  as  to  lead  at  once 
to  the  conclusion  that  they  were  brothers.  Jack  was  the 
cleaner  man  and  the  better  dressed  of  the  two.  I  admit 
that,  at  the  outset.  It  is,  perhaps,  one  of  my  failings  to 
p'.ish  justice  and  impartiality  to  their  utmost  limits.  I 
am  no  Pharisee  ;  and  where  Vice  has  its  redeeming  point, 
I  say,  let  Vice  have  its  due — yes,  yes,  by  all  manner  of 
means,  let  Vice  have  its  due. 

"  What's  the  matter  now,  Jack  ?"  says  Mr.  Jay. 

"  Can't  you  see  it  in  my  face  ?"  says  Jack.  "  My  dear 
fellow,  delays  are  dangerous.  Let  us  have  done  with 
suspense,  and  risk  it,  the  day  after  to-morrow." 

"So  soon  as  that?"  cries  Mr.  Jay,  looking  very  much 
astonished.  "  Well,  I'm  ready,  if  you  are.  But,  I  say, 
Jack,  is  somebody  else  ready  too  ?  Are  you  quite  sure 
of  that  ?" 

He  smiled  as  he  spoke— a  frightful  smile — and  laid  a 
very  strong  emphasis  on  those  two  words,  "  Somebody 
else."  There  is  evidently  a  third  ruffian,  a  nameless 
desperado,  concerned  in  the  business. 

"  Meet  us  to-morrow,"  says  Jack,  "  and  judge  for  your- 
self. Be  in  the  Regent's  Park  at  eleven  in  the  morning, 
and  look  out  for  us  at  the  turning  that  leads  to  the  Av- 
enue Road." 

"  I'll  be  there,"  says  Mr.  Jay.  "  Have  a  drop  of  bran- 
dy and  water?  What  are  you  getting  up  for?  You'ro 
not  going  already  ?" 


276  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

u  Yes  I  am,"  says  Jack.  "  The  fact  is,  I'm  so  excited 
and  agitated  that  I  can't  sit  still  any  where  for  five  min- 
utes together.  Ridiculous  as  it  may  appear  to  you,  I'm 
in  a  perpetual  state  of  nervous  flutter.  I  can't,  for  the 
life  of  me,  help  fearing  that  we  shall  be  found  out.  I 
fancy  that  every  man  who  looks  twice  at  me  in  the  street 
is  a  spy — " 

At  these  words  I  thought  my  legs  would  have  given 
way  under  me.  Nothing  but  strength  of  mind  kept  me 
at  my  peep-hole — nothing  else,  I  give  you  my  word  of 
honor. 

"Stuff  and  nonsense!"  cries  Mr.  Jay,  with  all  the 
effrontery  of  a  veteran  in  crime.  '4  We  have  kept  the 
secret  up  to  this  time,  and  we  will  manage  cleverly  to 
the  end.  Have  a  drop  of  brandy  and  water,  and  you 
will  feel  as  certain  about  it  as  I  do." 

Jack  steadily  refused  the  brandy  and  water,  and 
steadily  persisted  in  taking  his  leave. 

"  I  must  try  if  I  can't  walk  it  off,"  he  said.  "  Remem- 
ber to-morrow  morning — eleven  o'clock,  Avenue  Road, 
side  of  the  Regent's  Park." 

With  those  words  he  went  out.  His  hardened  rela- 
tive laughed  desperately  and  resumed  the  dirty  clay  pipe. 

I  sat  down  on  the  side  of  my  bed,  actually  quivering 
with  excitement. 

It  is  clear  to  me  that  no  attempt  has  yet  been  made  to 
change  the  stolen  bank-notes,  and  I  may  add  that  Ser- 
geant Bulmer  was  of  that  opinion  also  when  he  left  the 
case  in  my  hands.  What  is  the  natural  conclusion  to 
draw  from  the  conversation  which  I  have  just  set  down  ? 
Evidently  that  the  confederates  meet  to-morrow  to  take 
their  respective  shares  in  the  stolen  money,  and  to  decide 
on  the  safest  means  of  getting  the  notes  changed  the  day 
after.  Mr.  Jay  is,  beyond  a  doubt,  the  leading  criminal 
in  this  business,  and  lie  will  probably  run  the  chief  risk 


THE    QCEEX    OF    HEARTS.  277 

— that  of  changing  the  fifty-pound  note.  I  shall,  there- 
fore, still  make  it  my  business  to  follow  him — attending 
at  the  Regent's  Park  to-morrow,  and  doing  my  best  to 
hear  what  is  said  there.  If  another  appointment  is  made 
for  the  day  after,  I  shall,  of  course,  go  to  it.  In  the 
mean  time,  I  shall  want  the  immediate  assistance  of  two 
competent  persons  (supposing  the  rascals  separate  after 
their  meeting)  to  follow  the  two  minor  criminals.  It  is 
only  fair  to  add  that,  if  the  rogues  all  retire  together,  I 
shall  probably  keep  my  subordinates  in  reserve.  Being 
naturally  ambitious,  I  desire,  if  possible,  to  have  the 
whole  credit  of  discovering  this  robbery  to  myself. 

8th  July. 

I  have  to  acknowledge,  with  thanks,  the  speedy  arrival 
of  my  two  subordinates — men  of  very  average  abilities, 
I  am  afraid ;  but,  fortunately,  I  shall  always  be  on  the 
spot  to  direct  them. 

My  first  business  this  morning  was  necessarily  to  pre- 
vent possible  mistakes  by  accounting  to  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Yatman  for  the  presence  of  two  strangers  on  the  scene. 
Mr.  Yatman  (between  ourselves,  a  poor,  feeble  man)  only 
shook  his  head  and  groaned.  Mrs.  Yatman  (that  supe- 
rior woman)  favored  me  with  a  charming  look  of  intelli- 
gence. 

"  Oh,  Mr.  Sharpin !"  she  said,  "  I  am  so  sorry  to  see 
those  two  men  !  Your  sending  for  their  assistance  looks 
as  if  you  were  beginning  to  be  doubtful  of  success." 

I  privately  winked  at  her  (she  is  very  good  in  allowing 
me  to  do  so  without  taking  offense),  and  told  her,  in  my 
facetious  way,  that  she  labored  under  a  slight  mistake. 

"  It  is  because  I  am  sure  of  success,  ma'am,  that  I  send 
for  them.  I  am  determined  to  recover  the  money,  not 
for  my  own  sake  only,  but  for  Mr.  Yatman's  sake — and 
for  yours," 


278  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

I  laid  a  considerable  amount  of  stress  on  those  last 
three  words.  She  said,  "  Oh,  Mr.  Sharpin  !"  again,  and 
blushed  of  a  heavenly  red,  and  looked  down  at  her  work. 
I  could  go  to  the  world's  end  with  that  woman  if  Mr. 
Yatman  would  only  die. 

I  sent  off  the  two  subordinates  to  wait  until  I  wanted 
them  at  the  Avenue  Road  gate  of  the  Regent's  Park. 
Half  an  hour  afterward  I  was  following  the  same  direc- 
tion myself  at  the  heels  of  Mr.  Jay. 

The  two  confederates  were  punctual  to  the  appointed 
time.  I  blush  to  record  it,  but  it  is  nevertheless  neces- 
sary to  state  that  the  third  rogue — the  nameless  despe- 
rado of  my  report,  or,  if  you  prefer  it,  the  mysterious 
u  somebody  else"  of  the  conversation  between  the  two 
brothers — is — a  woman  !  and,  what  is  worse,  a  young 
woman !  and,  what  is  more  lamentable  still,  a  nice-look- 
ing woman  !  I  have  long  resisted  a  growing  conviction 
that,  wherever  there  is  mischief  in  this  world,  an  individ- 
ual  of  the  fair  sex  is  inevitably  certain  to  be  mixed  up  in 
it.  After  the  experience  of  this  morning,  I  can  struggle 
against  that  sad  conclusion  no  longer.  I  give  up  the  sex 
— excepting  Mrs.  Yatman,  I  give  up  the  sex. 

The  man  named  "  Jack"  offered  the  woman  his  arm. 
Mr.  Jay  placed  himself  on  the  other  side  of  her.  The 
three  then  walked  away  slowly  among  the  trees.  I  fol- 
lowed them  at  a  respectful  distance.  My  two  subordin- 
ates, at  a  respectful  distance  also,  followed  me. 

It  was,  I  deeply  regret  to  say,  impossible  to  get  near 
enough  to  them  to  overhear  their  conversation  without 
running  too  great  a  risk  of  being  discovered.  I  could 
only  infer  from  their  gestures  and  actions  that  they  were 
all  three  talking  with  extraordinary  earnestness  on  some 
subject  which  deeply  interested  them.  After  having 
been  engaged  in  this  way  a  full  quarter  of  an  hour,  they 
suddenly  turned  round  to  retrace  their  steps.  My  pres- 


THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS.  279 

ence  of  mind  did  not  forsake  me  in  this  emergency.  I 
signed  to  the  two  subordinates  to  walk  on  carelessly  and 
pass  them,  while  I  myself  slipped  dexterously  behind  :i 
tree.  As  they  came  by  me,  I  heard  "  Jack"  address  these 
words  to  Mr.  Jay  : 

"  Let  us  say  half  past  ten  to-morrow  morning.  And 
mind  you  come  in  a  cab.  We  had  better  not  risk  taking 
one  in  this  neighborhood." 

Mr.  Jay  made  some  brief  reply  which  I  could  not  over- 
hear. They  walked  back  to  the  place  at  which  they  had 
met,  shaking  hands  there  with  an  audacious  cordiality 
which  it  quite  sickened  me  to  see.  They  then  separated. 
I  followed  Mr.  Jay.  My  subordinates  paid  the  same  del- 
icate attention  to  the  other  two. 

Instead  of  taking  me  back  to  Rutherford  Street,  Mr. 
Jay  led  me  to  the  Strand.  He  stopped  at  a  dingy,  dis- 
reputable-looking house,  which,  according  to  the  inscrip- 
tion over  the  door,  was  a  newspaper  office,  but  which,  in 
my  judgment,  had  all  the  external  appearance  of  a  place 
devoted  to  the  reception  of  stolen  goods. 

After  remaining  inside  for  a  few  minutes,  he  came  out 
whistling,  with  his  finger  and  thumb  in  his  waistcoat 
pocket.  Some  men  would  now  have  arrested  him  on  the 
spot.  I  remembered  the  necessity  of  catching  the  two 
confederates,  and  the  importance  of  not  interfering  with 
the  appointment  that  had  been  made  for  the  next  morn- 
ing. Such  coolness  as  this,  under  trying  circumstances, 
is  rarely  to  be  found,  I  should  imagine,  in  a  young  be- 
ginner, whose  reputation  as  a  detective  policeman  is  still 
to  make. 

From  the  house  of  suspicious  appearance  Mr.  Jay  be- 
took himself  to  a  cigar-divan,  and  read  the  magazines 
over  a  cheroot.  From  the  divan  he  strolled  to  the  tav- 
ern and  had  his  chops.  I  strolled  to  the  tavern  and  had 
my  chops.  When  he  had  done  he  went  back  to  his  lodg- 


280  THE  QUEEN*  OF  HKARTS. 

ing.  When  I  had  done  I  went  back  to  mine.  He  was 
overcome  with  drowsiness  early  in  the  evening,  and  went 
to  bed.  As  soon  as  I  heard  him  snoring,  I  was  overcome 
with  drowsiness  and  went  to  bed  also. 

Early  in  the  morning  my  two  subordinates  came  to 
make  their  report. 

They  had  seen  the  man  named  "  Jack"  leave  the  wom- 
an at  the  gate  of  an  apparently  respectable  villa  residence 
not  far  from  the  Regent's  Park.  Left  to  himself,  he  took 
a  turning  to  the  right,  which  led  to  a  sort  of  suburban 
street,  principally  inhabited  by  shopkeepers.  He  stopped 
at  the  private  door  of  one  of  the  houses,  and  let  himself 
in  with  his  own  key — looking  about  him  as  he  opened 
the  door,  and  staring  suspiciously  at  my  men  as  they 
lounged  along  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  way.  These 
were  all  the  pai'ticulars  which  the  subordinates  had  to 
communicate.  I  kept  them  in  my  room  to  attend  on  me, 
if  needful,  and  mounted  to  my  peep-hole  to  have  a  look 
at  Mr.  Jay. 

He  was  occupied  in  dressing  himself,  and  was  taking 
extraordinary  pains  to  destroy  all  traces  of  the  natural 
slovenliness  of  his  appearance.  This  was  precisely  what 
I  expected.  A  vagabond  like  Mr.  Jay  knows  the  import- 
ance of  giving  himself  a  respectable  look  when  he  is  go- 
ing to  run  the  risk  of  changing  a  stolen  bank-note.  At 
five  minutes  past  ten  o'clock  he  had  given  the  last  brush 
to  his  shabby  hat  and  the  last' scouring  with  bread-crumb 
to  his  dirty  gloves.  At  ten  minutes  past  ten  he  was  in 
the  street,  on  his  way  to  the  nearest  cab-stand,  and  I  and 
my  subordinates  were  close  on  his  heels. 

He  took  a  cab,  and  we  took  a  cab.  I  had  not  over- 
heard them  appoint  a  place  of  meeting  when  following 
them  in  the  Park  on  the  previous  day,  but  I  soon  found 
that  we  wrere  proceeding  in  the  old  direction  of  the  Av- 
enue Road  gate.  The  cab  in  which  Mr.  Jay  was  riding 


THK    QUEEN"    OF    1IKAHTS.  281 

turned  into  the  Park  slowly.  We  stopped  outside,  to 
avoid  exciting  suspicion.  I  got  out  to  follow  the  cab  on 
foot.  Just  as  I  did  so,  I  saw  it  stop,  and  detected  the 
two  confederates  approaching  it  from  among  the  trees. 
They  got  in,  and  the  cab  was  turned  about  directly.  I 
ran  back  to  my  own  cab,  and  told  the  driver  to  let  them 
pass  him,  and  then  to  follow  as  before. 

The  man  obeyed  my  directions,  but  so  clumsily  as  to 
excite  their  suspicions.  We  had  been  driving  after  them 
about  three  minutes  (returning  along  the  road  by  which 
we  had  advanced)  when  I  looked  out  of  the  window  to 
see  how  far  they  might  be  ahead  of  us.  As  I  did  this,  I 
saw  two  hats  popped  out  of  the  windows  of  their  cab, 
and  two  faces  looking  back  at  me.  I  sank  into  my  place 
in  a  cold  sweat ;  the  expression  is  coarse,  but  no  other 
form  of  words  can  describe  my  condition  at  that  trying 
moment. 

"We  are  found  out!"  I  said,  faintly,  to  my  two  sub- 
ordinates. They  stared  at  me  in  astonishment.  My 
feelings  changed  instantly  from  the  depth  of  despair  to 
the  height  of  indignation. 

"  It  is  the  cabman's  fault.  Get  out,  one  of  you,"  I 
said,  with  dignity — "  get  out,  and  punch  his  head." 

Instead  of  following  my  directions  (I  should  wish  this 
act  of  disobedience  t&  be  reported  at  head-quarters)  they 
both  looked  out  of  the  window.  Before  I  could  pull 
them  back  they  both  sat  down  again.  Before  I  could 
express  my  just  indignation,  they  both  grinned,  and  said 
to  me,  "  Please  to  look  out,  sir !" 

I  did  look  out.     Their  cab  had  stopped. 

Where  ? 

At  a  church  door ! 

What  effect  this  discovery  might  have  had  upon  the 
ordinary  run  of  men  I  don't  know.  Being  of  a  strong 
religious  turn  myself,  it  filled  me  with  horror.  I  have 


282  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

often  read  of  the  unprincipled  cunning  of  criminal  per- 
sons, but  I  never  before  heard  of  three  thieves  attempt- 
ing to  double  on  their  pursuers  by  entering  a  church ! 
The  sacrilegious  audacity  of  that  proceeding  is,  I  should 
think,  unparalleled  in  the  annals  of  crime. 

I  checked  my  grinning  subordinates  by  a  frown.  It 
was  easy  to  see  what  was  passing  in  their  superficial 
minds.  If  I  had  not  been  able  to  look  below  the  surface, 
I  might,  on  observing  two  nicely-dressed  men  and  one 
nicely-dressed  woman  enter  a  church  before  eleven  in 
the  morning  on  a  week  day,  have  come  to  the  same 
hasty  conclusion  at  which  my  inferiors  had  evidently  ar- 
rived. As  it  was,  appearances  had  no  power  to  impose 
on  Die.  I  got  out,  and,  followed  by  one  of  my  men,  en- 
tered the  church.  The  other  man  I  sent  round  to  watch 
the  vestry  door.  You  may  catch  a  weasel  asleep,  but 
not  your  humble  servant,  Matthew  Sharpin  ! 

We  stole  up  the  gallery  stairs,  diverged  to  the  organ- 
loft,  and  peered  through  the  curtains  in  front.  There 
they  were,  all  three,  sitting  in  a  pew  below  —  yes,  in- 
credible as  it  may  appear,  sitting  in  a  pew  below! 

Before  I  could  determine  what  to  do,  a  clergyman 
made  his  appearance  in  full  canonicals  from  the  vestry 
door,  followed  by  a  clerk.  My  brain  whirled  and  my 
eyesight  grew  dim.  Dark  remembrances  of  robberies 
committed  in  vestries  floated  through  my  mind.  I 
trembled  for  the  excellent  man  in  full  canonicals — I  even 
trembled  for  the  clerk. 

The  clergyman  placed  himself  inside  the  altar  rails. 
The  three  desperadoes  approached  him.  He  opened  his 
book,  and  began  to  read.  What  ?  you  will  ask. 

I  answer,  without  the  slightest  hesitation,  the  first 
lines  of  the  Marriage  Service. 

My  subordinate  had  the  audacity  to  look  at  me,  and 
then  to  stivff  his  pocket-handkerchief  into  his  mouth.  I 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  283 

scorned  to  pay  any  attention  to  him.  After  I  had  dis- 
covered that  the  man  "  Jack"  was  the  bridegroom,  and 
that  the  man  Jay  acted  the  part  of  father,  and  gave 
away  the  bride,  I  left  the  church,  followed  by  my  men, 
and  joined  the  other  subordinate  outside  the  vestry  door. 
Some  people  in  my  position  would  now  have  felt  rather 
crestfallen,  and  would  have  begun  to  think  that  they  had 
made  a  very  foolish  mistake.  Not  the  faintest  misgiving 
of  any  kind  troubled  me.  I  did  not  feel  in  the  slightest 
degree  depreciated  in  my  own  estimation.  And  even 
now,  after  a  lapse  of  three  hours,  my  mind  remains,  I 
am  happy  to  say,  in  the  same  calm  and  hopeful  condition. 

As  soon  as  I  and  my  subordinates  were  assembled  to- 
gether outside  the  church,  I  intimated  my  intention  of 
still  following  the  other  cab  in  spite  of  what  had  occur- 
red. My  reason  for  deciding  on  this  course  will  appear 
presently.  The  two  subordinates  appeared  to  be  aston- 
ished at  my  resolution.  One  of  them  had  the  imperti- 
nence to  say  to  me, 

"  If  you  please,  sir,  who  is  it  that  we  are  after  ?  A 
man  who  has  stolen  money,  or  a  man  who  has  stolen  a 
wife  ?" 

The  other  low  person  encouraged  him  by  laughing. 
Both  have  deserved  an  official  reprimand,  and  both,  I 
sincerely  trust,  will  be  sure  to  get  it. 

When  the  marriage  ceremony  was  over,  the  three  got 
into  their  cab,  and  once  more  our  vehicle  (neatly  hidden 
round  the  corner  of  the  church,  so  that  they  could  not 
suspect  it  to  be  near  them)  started  to  follow  theirs. 

We  traced  them  to  the  terminus  of  the  Southwestern 
Railway.  The  newly-married  couple  took  tickets  for 
Richmond,  paying  their  fare  with  a  half  sovereign,  and 
so  depriving  me  of  the  pleasure  of  arresting  them,  which 
I  should  certainly  have  done  if  they  had  offered  a  bank- 
note. They  parted  from  Mr.  Jay,  saying,  "  Remember 

13 


284  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

the  address — 14  Babylon  Terrace.  You  dine  with  us 
to-morrow  week."  Mr.  Jay  accepted  the  invitation,  and 
added,  jocosely,  that  he  was  going  home  at  once  to  get 
off  his  clean  clothes,  and  to  be  comfortable  and  dirty 
again  for  the  rest  of  the  day.  I  have  to  report  that  I 
saw  him  home  safely,  and  that  he  is  comfortable  and 
dirty  again  (to  use  his  own  disgraceful  language)  at  the 
present  moment. 

Here  the  affair  rests,  having  by  this  time  reached  what 
I  may  call  its  first  stage. 

I  know  very  well  what  persons  of  hasty  judgment  will 
be  inclined  to  say  of  my  proceedings  thus  far.  They 
will  assert  that  I  have  been  deceiving  myself  all  through 
in  the  most  absurd  way ;  they  will  declare  that  the  sus- 
picious conversations  which  I  have  reported  referred 
solely  to  the  difficulties  and  dangers  of  successfully  car- 
rying out  a  runaway  match ;  and  they  will  appeal  to  the 
scene  in  the  church  as  offering  undeniable  proof  of  the 
correctness  of  their  assertions.  So  let  it  be.  I  dispute 
nothing  up  to  this  point.  But  I  ask  a  question,  out  of 
the  depths  of  my  own  sagacity  as  a  man  of  the  world, 
which  the  bitterest  of  my  enemies  will  not,  I  think,  find 
it  particularly  easy  to  answer. 

Granted  the  fact  of  the  marriage,  what  proof  does  it 
afford  me  of  the  innocence  of  the  three  persons  concern- 
ed in  that  clandestine  transaction  ?  It  gives  me  none. 
On  the  contrary,  it  strengthens  my  suspicions  against 
Mr.  Jay  and  his  confederates,  because  it  suggests  a  dis- 
tinct motive  for  their  stealing  the  money.  A  gentleman 
who  is  going  to  spend  his  honeymoon  at  Richmond 
wants  money ;  and  a  gentleman  who  is  in  debt  to  all  his 
tradespeople  wants  money.  Is  this  an  unjustifiable  im- 
putation of  bad  motives?  In  the  name  of  outraged  Mo- 
rality, I  deny  it.  These  men  have  combined  together, 
and  have  stolen  a  woman.  Why  should  they  not  com- 


THE    QUEEN    OP    HEARTS.  285 

« 

bine  together  and  steal  a  cash-box  ?  I  take  my  stand  on 
the  logic  of  rigid  Virtue,  and  I  defy  all  the  sophistry  of 
Vice  to  move  me  an  inch  out  of  my  position. 

Speaking  of  virtue,  I  may  add  that  I  have  put  this 
view  of  the  case  to  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Yatrnan.  That  accom- 
plished and  charming  woman  found  it  difficult  at  first  to 
follow  the  close  chain  of  my  reasoning.  I  am  free  to 
confess  that  she  shook  her  head,  and  shed  tears,  and 
joined  her  husband  in  premature  lamentation  over  the 
loss  of  the  two  hundred  pounds.  But  a  little  careful  ex- 
planation on  my  part,  and  a  little  attentive  listening  on 
hers,  ultimately  changed  her  opinion.  She  now  agrees 
with  me  that  there  is  nothing  in  this  unexpected  circum- 
stance of  the  clandestine  marriage  which  absolutely 
tends  to  divert  suspicion  from  Mr.  Jay,  or  Mr.  "  Jack," 
or  the  runaway  lady.  "  Audacious  hussy"  was  the  term 
my  fair  friend  used  in  speaking  of  her  ;  but  let  that  pass. 
It  is  more  to  the  purpose  to  record  that  Mrs.  Yatman 
has  not  lost  confidence  in  me,  and  that  Mr.  Yatman  prom- 
ises to  follow  her  example,  and  do  his  best  to  look  hope- 
fully for  future  results. 

I  have  now,  in  the  new  turn  that  circumstances  have 
taken,  to  await  advice  from  your  office.  I  pause  for 
fresh  orders  witli  all  the  composure  of  a  man  who  has 
got  two  strings  to  his  bow.  When  I  traced  the  three 
confederates  from  the  church  door  to  the  railway  termin- 
us, I  had  two  motives  for  doing  so.  First,  I  followed 
them  as  a  matter  of  official  business,  believing  them  still 
to  have  been  guilty  of  the  robbery.  Secondly,  I  followed 
them  as  a  matter  of  private  speculation,  with  a  view  of 
discovering  the  place  of  refuge  to  which  the  runaway 
couple  intended  to  retreat,  and  of  making  my  informa- 
tion a  marketable  commodity  to  offer  to  the  young  lady's 
family  and  friends.  Thus,  whatever  happens,  I  may  con- 
gratulate myself  beforehand  on  not  having  wasted  my 


286  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

•« 

time.  If  the  office  approves  of  my  conduct,  I  have  my 
plan  ready  for  farther  proceedings.  If  the  office  blames 
me,  I  shall  take  myself  off,  with  my  marketable  informa- 
tion, to  the  genteel  villa  residence  in  the  neighborhood 
of  the  Regent's  Park.  Any  way,  the  affair  puts  money 
into  my  pocket,  and  does  credit  to  my  penetration  as  an 
uncommonly  sharp  man. 

I  have  only  one  word  more  to  add,  and  it  is  this :  If 
any  individual  ventures  to  assert  that  Mr.  Jay  and  his 
confederates  are  innocent  of  all  share  in  the  stealing  of 
the  cash-box,  I,  in  return,  defy  that  individual — though 
he  may  even  be  Chief  Inspector  Theakstone  himself — to 
tell  me  who  has  committed  the  robbery  at  Rutherford 
Street,  Soho. 

Strong  in  that  conviction,  I  have  the  honor  to  be  your 
very  obedient  servant,  MATTHEW  SHARPIN. 

FROM    CHIEF    INSPECTOR   THEAKSTONE    TO    SERGEANT 
BULMER. 

Birmingham,  July  9th. 

SERGEANT  BULMER, — That  empty-headed  puppy,  Mr. 
Matthew  Sharpin,  has  made  a  mess  of  the  case  at  Ruth- 
erford Street,  exactly  as  I  expected  he  would.  Business 
keeps  me  in  this  town,  so  I  write  to  you  to  set  the  mat- 
ter straight.  I  inclose  with  this  the  pages  of  feeble 
scribble-scrabble  which  the  creature  Sharpin  calls  a  re- 
port. Look  them  over ;  and  when  you  have  made  your 
way  through  all  the  gabble,  I  think  you  will  agree  with 
me  that  the  conceited  booby  has  looked  for  the  thief  in 
every  direction  but  the  right  one.  You  can  lay  your 
hand  on  the  guilty  person  in  five  minutes,  now.  Settle 
the  case  at  once ;  forward  your  report  to  me  at  this  place, 
and  tell  Mr.  Sharpin  that  he  is  suspended  till  farther  no- 
tice. 

Yours,  FRANCIS  THEAKSTONE. 


THE    QUEEN,    OF    HEARTS.  287 

FKOM    SERGEANT   BULMER   TO    CHIEF    INSPECTOR   THEAK- 
STONE. 

London,  July  10th. 

INSPECTOR  THEAKSTONE, — Your  letter  and  iuclosure 
came  safe  to  hand.  Wise  men,  they  say,  may  always 
learn  something  even  from  a  fool.  By  the  time  I  had 
got  through  Sharpin's  maundering  report  of  his  own 
folly,  I  saw  my  way  clear  enough  to  the  end  of  the  Ruth- 
erford Street  case,  just  as  you  thought  I  should.  In  half 
an  hour's  time  I  was  at  the  house.  The  first  person  I 
saw  there  was  Mr.  Sharpin  himself. 

"  Have  you  come  to  help  me  ?"  says  he. 

"  Not  exactly,"  says  I.  "  I've  come  to  tell  you  that 
you  are  suspended  till  farther  notice." 

"  Very  good,"  says  he,  not  taken  down  by  so  much  as 
a  single  peg  in  his  own  estimation.  "  I  thought  you 
would  be  jealous  of  me.  It's  very  natural ;  and  I  don't 
blame  you.  Walk  in,  pray,  and  make  yourself  at  home. 
I'm  off  to  do  a  little  detective  business  on  my  own  ac- 
count, in  the  neighborhood  of  the  Regent's  Park.  Ta-ta, 
sergeant,  ta-ta !" 

With  those  words  he  took  himself  out  of  the  way, 
which  was  exactly  what  I  wanted  him  to  do. 

As  soon  as  the  maid-servant  had  shut  the  door,  I  told 
her  to  inform  her  master  that  I  wanted  to  say  a  word  to 
him  in  private.  She  showed  me  into  the  parlor  behind 
the  shop,  and  the*e  was  Mr.  Yatman  all  alone,  reading 
the  newspaper. 

"  About  this  matter  of  the  robbery,  sir,"  says  I. 

He  cut  me  short,  peevishly  enough,  being  naturally  a 
poor,  weak,  womanish  sort  of  man.  "  Yes,  yes,  I  know," 
says  he.  "  You  have  come  to  tell  me  that  your  wonder- 
fully clever  man,  who  has  bored  holes  in  my  second-floor 
partition,  has  made  a  mistake,  and  is  off  the  scent  of  the 
scoundrel  who  has  stolen  my  money." 


288  THE  QUEEN. OF  HEAKTS. 

"  Yes,  sir,"  says  I.  "  That  is  one  of  the  things  I  came 
to  tell  you.  But  I  have  got  something  else  to  say  be- 
sides that." 

"  Can  you  tell  me  who  the  thief  is  ?"  says  he,  more 
pettish  than  ever. 

"  Yes,  sir,"  says  I,  "  I  think  I  can." 

He  put  down  the  newspaper,  and  began  to  look  rather 
anxious  and  frightened. 

"  Not  my  shopman  ?"  says  he.  "  I  hope,  for  the  man's 
own  sake,  it's  not  my  shopman." 

"  Guess  again,  sir,"  says  I. 

"  That  idle  slut,  the  maid  ?"  says  he. 

"She  is  idle,  sir,"  says  I,  "and  she  is  also  a  slut;  my 
first  inquiries  about  her  proved  as  much  as  that.  But 
she's  not  the  thief." 

"  Then,  in  the  name  of  heaven,  who  is  ?"  says  he. 

"  Will  you  please  to  prepare  yourself  for  a  very  disa- 
greeable surprise,  sir  ?"  says  I.  "  And,  in  case  you  lose 
your  temper,  will  you  excuse  my  remarking  that  I  am  the 
stronger  man  of  the  two,  and  that,  if  you  allow  yourself 
to  lay  hands  on  me,  I  may  unintentionally  hurt  you,  in 
pure  self-defense." 

He  turned  as  pale  as  ashes,  and  pushed  his  chair  two 
or  three  feet  away  from  me. 

"You  have  asked  me  to  tell  you,  sir,  who  has  taken 
your  money,"  I  went  on.  "  If  you  insist  on  my  giving 
you  an  answer — 

"  I  do  insist,"  he  said,  faintly.     "  Who  has  taken  it  ?" 

"  Your  wife  has  taken  it,"  I  said,  very  quietly,  and 
very  positively  at  the  same  time. 

He  jumped  out  of  the  chair  as  if  I  had  put  a  knife  into 
him,  and  struck  his  fist  on  the  table  so  heavily  that  the 
wood  cracked  again. 

"  Steady,  sir,"  says  I.  "  Flying  into  a  passion  won't 
help  you  to  the  truth." 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  289 

"  It's  a  lie !"  says  he,  Avith  another  smack  of  his  fist  on 
the  table — "  a  base,  vile,  infamous  lie !  How  dare  you — 

He  stopped,  and  fell  back  into  the  chair  again,  looked 
about  him  in  a  bewildered  way,  and  ended  by  bursting 
out  crying. 

"When  your  better  sense  comes  back  to  you,  sir," 
says  I,  "  I  am  sure  you  will  be  gentleman  enough  to  make 
an  apology  for  the  language  you  have  just  used.  In  the 
mean  time,  please  to  listen,  if  you  can,  to  a  word  of  ex- 
planation. Mr.  Sharpin  has  sent  in  a  report  to  our  in- 
spector of  the  most  irregular  and  ridiculous  kind,  setting 
down  not  only  all  his  own  foolish  doings  and  sayings,  but 
the  doings  and  sayings  of  Mrs.  Yatman  as  well.  In  most 
cases,  such  a  document  would  have  been  fit  only  for  the 
waste- paper  basket ;  but  in  this  particular  case  it  so  hap- 
pens that  Mr.  Sharpin's  budget  of  nonsense  leads  to  a 
certain  conclusion,  which  the  simpleton  of  a  writer  has 
been  quite  innocent  of  suspecting  from  the  beginning  to 
the  end.  Of  that  conclusion  I  am  so  sure  that  I  will  for- 
feit my  place  if  it  does  not  turn  out  that  Mrs.  Yatman 
has  been  practicing  upon  the  folly  and  conceit  of  this 
young  man,  and  that  she  has  tried  to  shield  herself  from 
discovery  by  purposely  encouraging  him  to  suspect  the 
wrong  persons.  I  tell  you  that  confidently ;  and  I  will 
even  go  farther.  I  will  undertake  to  give  a  decided 
opinion  as  to  why  Mrs.  Yatman  took  the  money,  and 
what  she  has  done  with  it,  or  with  a  part  of  it.  Nobody 
can  look  at  that  lady,  sir,  without  being  struck  by  the 
great  taste  and  beauty  of  her  dress — " 

As  I  said  those  last  words,  the  poor  man  seemed  to 
find  his  powers  of  speech  again.  He  cut  me  short  direct- 
ly as  haughtily  as  if  he  had  been  a  duke  instead  of  a  sta- 
tioner. 

"  Try  some  other  means  of  justifying  your  vile  calumny 
against  my  Avife,"  says  he.  "Her  milliner's  Hll  for  the 


290  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

past  year  is  on  my  file  of  receipted  accounts  at  this  mo 
ment." 

"Excuse  me,  sir,"  says  I,  "but  that  proves  nothing. 
Milliners,  I  must  tell  you,  have  a  certain  rascally  custom 
which  comes  within  the  daily  experience  of  our  office. 
A  married  lady  who  wishes  it  can  keep  two  accounts  at 
her  dressmaker's :  one  is  the  account  which  her  husband 
sees  and  pays;  the  other  is  the  private  account,  which 
contains  all  the  extravagant  items,  and  which  the  wife 
pays  secretly,  by  installments,  whenever  she  can.  Ac- 
cording to  our  usual  experience,  these  installments  are 
mostly  squeezed  out  of  the  housekeeping  money.  In 
your  case,  I  suspect,  no  installments  have  been  paid ;  pro- 
ceedings have  been  threatened;  Mrs.  Yatman,  knowing 
your  altered  circumstances,  has  felt  herself  driven  into  a 
corner,  and  she  has  paid  her  private  account  out  of  your 
cash-box." 

"  I  won't  believe  it,"  says  he.  "  Every  word  you 
speak  is  an  abominable  insult  to  me  and  to  my  wife." 

"Are  you  man  enough,  sir,"  says  I,  taking  him  up 
short,  in  order  to  save  time  and  words,  "  to  get  that  re- 
ceipted bill  you  spoke  of  just  now  off  the  file,  and  come 
with  me  at  once  to  the  milliner's  shop  where  Mrs.  Yat- 
man deals?" 

He  turned  red  in  the  face  at  that,  got  the  bill  directly, 
and  put  on  his  hat.  I  took  out  of  my  pocket-book  the 
list  containing  the  numbers  of  the  lost  notes,  and  we  left 
the  house  together  immediately. 

Arrived  at  the  milliner's  (one  of  the  expensive  West- 
end  houses,  as  I  expected),  I  asked  for  a  private  inter- 
view, on  important  business,  with  the  mistress  of  the 
concern.  It  was  not  the  first  time  that  she  and  I  had 
met  over  the  same  delicate  investigation.  The  moment 
sne  set  eyes  on  me  she  sent  for  her  husband.  I  mention- 
ed who  Mr.  Yatman  was,  and  what  we  wanted. 


TUB    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  291 

"This  is  strictly  private?"  inquires  the  husband.  I 
nodded  my  head. 

"  And  confidential  ?"  says  the  wife.     I  nodded  again. 

"  Do  you  see  any  objection,  dear,  to  obliging  the  ser- 
geant with  a  sight  of  the  books  ?"  says  the  husband. 

"  None  in  the  world,  love,  if  you  approve  of  it,"  says 
the  wife. 

All  this  while  poor  Mr.  Yatman  sat  looking  the  picture 
of  astonishment  and  distress,  quite  out  of  place  at  our 
polite  conference.  The  books  were  brought,  and  one 
minute's  look  at  the  pages  in  which  Mrs.  Yatman's  name 
figured  Avas  enough,  and  more  than  enough,  to  prove  the 
truth  of  every  Avord  that  I  had  spoken. 

There,  in  one  book,  Avas  the  husband's  account  Avhich 
Mr.  Yatman  had  settled  ;  and  there,  in  the  other,  was 
the  private  account,  crossed  off  also,  the  date  of  settle- 
ment being  the  very  day  after  the  loss  of  the  cash-box. 
This  said  private  account  amounted  to  the  sum  of  a 
hundred  and  seventy-five  pounds,  odd  shillings,  and  it 
extended  over  a  period  of  three  years.  Not  a  single  in- 
stallment had  been  paid  on  it.  Under  the  last  line  Avas 
an  entry  to  this  effect :  "  Written  to  for  the  third  time, 
June  23d."  I  pointed  to  it,  and  asked  the  milliner  if 
that  meant  "last  June."  Yes,  it  did  mean  last  June,- 
and  she  noAv  deeply  regretted  to  say  that  it  had  been 
accompanied  by  a  threat  of  legal  proceedings. 

"  I  thought  you  gave  good  customers  more  than  three 
years'  credit  ?"  says  I. 

The  milliner  looks  at  Mr.  Yatman,  and  whispers  to  me, 
"  Not  when  a  lady's  husband  gets  into  difficulties." 

She  pointed  to  the  account  as  she  spoke.  The  entries 
after  the  time  when  Mr.  Yatman's  circumstances  became 
involved  were  just  as  extravagant,  for  a  person  in  his 
wife's  situation,  as  the  entries  for  the  year  before  that 
period.  If  the  lady  had  economized  in  other  things,  she 
had  certainly  not  economized  in  the  matter  of  dress. 

13* 


292  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

There  was  nothing  left  now  but  to  examine  the  cash- 
book,  for  form's  sake.  The  money  had  been  paid  in 
notes,  the  amounts  and  numbers  of  which  exactly  tallied 
with  the  figures  set  down  in  my  list. 

After  that,  I  thought  it  best  to  get  Mr.  Yatman  out 
of  the  house  immediately.  He  was  in  such  a  pitiable 
condition  that  I  called  a  cab  and  accompanied  him  home 
in  it.  At  first  he  cried  and  raved  like  a  child;  but  I 
soon  quieted  him ;  and  I  must  add,  to  his  credit,  that  he 
made  me  a  most  handsome  apology  for  his  language  as 
the  cab  drew  up  at  his  house  door.  In  return,  I  tried  to 
give  him  some  advice  about  how  to  set  matters  right  for 
the  future  with  his  wife.  He  paid  very  little  attention 
to  me,  and  went  up  stairs  muttering  to  himself  about  a 
separation.  Whether  Mrs.  Yatman  will  come  cleverly 
out  of  the  scrape  or  not  seems  doubtful.  I  should  say 
myself  that  she  would  go  into  screeching  hysterics,  and 
so  frighten  the  poor  man  into  forgiving  her.  But  this  is 
no  business  of  ours.  So  far  as  we  are  concerned,  the 
case  is  now  at  an  end,  and  the  present  report  may  come 
to  a  conclusion  along  with  it. 

I  remain,  accordingly,  yours  to  command, 

THOMAS  BULMER. 

P.S. — I  have  to  add  that,  on  leaving  Rutherford 
Street,  I  met  Mr.  Matthew  Sharpin  coming  to  pack  up 
his  things. 

"Only  think!"  says  he,  rubbing  his  hands  in  great 
spirits,  "  I've  been  to  the  genteel  villa  residence,  and  the 
moment  I  mentioned  my  business  they  kicked  me  out 
directly.  There  were  two  witnesses  of  the  assault,  and 
it's  worth  a  hundred  pounds  to  me  if  it's  worth  a  far- 
thing." 

"  I  wish  you  joy  of  your  luck,"  says  I. 

"  Thank  you,"  says  he.  "  When  may  I  pay  you  the 
same  compliment  on  finding  the  thief?" 


THE    UUKEN    OF    11KAUTS.  293 


"  Whenever  you  like,"  says  I,  "  for  the  thief  is  found." 

"  Just  what  I  expected,"  says  he.  .  "  I've  done  all  the 
work,  and  now  you  cut  in  and  claim  all  the  credit  —  Mr. 
Jay,  of  course." 

"  No,"  says  I. 

"  Who  is  it  then  ?"  says  he. 

"  Ask  Mrs.  Yatman,"  says  I.  "  She's  waiting  to  tell 
you." 

"  All  right  !  I'd  much  rather  hear  it  from  that  charm- 
ing woman  than  from  you,"  says  he,  and  goes  into  the 
house  in  a  mighty  hurry. 

What  do  you  think  of  that,  Inspector  Theakstone  ? 
Would  you  like  to  stand  in  Mr.  Sharpin's  shoes?  I 
shouldn't,  I  can  promise  you. 

FROM   CHIEF   INSPECTOR   THEAKSTONE   TO   MR.  MATTHEW 
SHARPIN. 

July  12th. 

SIR,  —  Sergeant  Bulmer  has  already  told  you  to  con- 
sider yourself  suspended  until  farther  notice.  I  have 
now  authority  to  add  that  your  services  as  a  member  of 
the  Detective  Police  are  positively  declined.  You  will 
please  to  take  this  letter  as  notifying  officially  your  dis- 
missal from  the  force. 

I  may  inform  you,  privately,  that  your  rejection  is  not 
intended  to  cast  any  reflections  on  your  character.  It 
merely  implies  that  you  are  not  quite  sharp  enough  for 
our  purposes.  If  we  are  to  have  a  new  recruit  among 
us,  we  should  infinitely  prefer  Mrs.  Yatman. 

Your  obedient  servant,         FRANCIS  THEAKSTONE. 

NOTE    ON    THE    PRECEDING   CORRESPONDENCE,  ADDED  BY  MR.  THEAK- 
STONE. 

The  inspector  is  not  in  a  position  to  append  any  explanations  of 
importance  to  the  last  of  the  letters.  It  has  been  discovered  that  Mr. 
Matthew  Sharpin  left  the  house  in  Kutherford  Street  five  minutes 


294  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

after  his  interview  outside  of  it  with  Sergeant  Bulmer,  his  manner  ex- 
pressing the  liveliest  emotions  of  terror  and  astonishment,  and  his  left 
cheek  displaying  a  bright  patch  of  red,  which  looked  as  if  it  might  have 
been  the  result  of  what  is  popularly  termed  a  smart  box  on  the  ear. 
He  was  also  heard  by  the  shopman  at  Rutherford  Street  to  use  a  very 
shocking  expression  in  reference  to  Mrs.  Yatman,  and  was  seen  to 
clench  his  fist  vindictively  as  he  ran  round  the  corner  of  the  street. 
Nothing  more  has  been  heard  of  him ;  and  it  is  conjectured  that  lie 
has  left  London  with  the  intention  of  offering  his  valuable  services  to 
the  provincial  police. 

On  the  interesting  domestic  subject  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Yatman  still 
less  is  known.  It  has,  however,  been  positively  ascertained  that  the 
medical  attendant  of  the  family  was  sent  for  in  a  great  hurry  on  the 
day  when  Mr.  Yatman  returned  from  the  milliner's  shop.  The  neigh- 
boring chemist  received,  soon  afterward,  a  prescription  of  a  soothing 
nature  to  make  up  for  Mrs.  Yatman.  The  day  after,  Mr.  Yatman 
purchased  some  smelling-salts  at  the  shop,  and  afterward  appeared  at 
the  circulating  library  to  ask  for  a  novel  descriptive  of  high  life  that 
would  amuse  an  invalid  lady.  It  has  been  inferred  from  these  cir- 
cumstances that  he  has  not  thought  it  desirable  to  carry  out  his  threat 
of  separating  from  his  wife,  at  least  in  the  present  (presumed)  condi- 
tion of  that  lady's  sensitive  nervous  system. 


THE  SEVENTH  DAY. 

FINE  enough  for  our  guest  to  go  out  again.  Long, 
feathery  lines  of  white  cloud  are  waving  upward  in  the 
sky,  a  sign  of  coining  wind. 

There  was  a  steamer  telegraphed  yesterday  from  the 
West  Indies.  When  the  next  vessel  is  announced  from 
abroad,  will  it  be  George's  ship  ? 

I  don't  know  how  my  brothers  feel  to-day,  but  the 
sudden  cessation  of  my  own  literary  labors  has  left  me 
still  in  bad  spirits.  I  tried  to  occupy  my  mind  by  read- 
ing, but  my  attention  wandered.  I  went  out  into  the 
garden,  but  it  looked  dreary ;  the  autumn  flowers  were 
few  and  far  between — the  lawn  was  soaked  and  sodden 
with  yesterday's  rain.  I  wandered  into  Owen's  room. 
He  had  returned  to  his  painting,  but  was  not  working, 
as  it  struck  me,  with  his  customary  assiduity  and  his 
customary  sense  of  enjoyment. 

We  had  a  long  talk  together  about  George  and  Jessie 
and  the  future.  Owen  urged  me  to  risk  speaking  of  my 
son  in  her  presence  once  more,  on  the  chance  of  making 
her  betray  herself  on  a  second  occasion,  and  I  determined 
to  take  his  advice.  But  she  was  in  such  high  >pirits 
when  she  came  home  to  dinner  on  this  Seventh  Day,  and 
seemed  so  incapable,  for  the  time  being,  of  either  feeling 
or  speaking  seriously,  that  I  thought  it  wiser  to  wait  till 
her  variable  mood  altered  again  with  the  next  wet  day. 

The  number  drawn  this  evening  was  Eight,  being  the 
number  of  the  story  which  it  had  cost  Owen  so  much 
labor  to  write.  He  looked  a  little  fluttered  and  anxious 
as  he  opened  the  manuscript.  This  was  the  first  occa- 


296  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

sion  on  which  his  ability  as  a  narrator  was  to  be  brought 
to  the  test,  and  I  saw  him  glance  nervously  at  Jessie's 
attentive  face. 

"  I  need  not  trouble  you  with  much  in  the  way  of  pref- 
ace," he  said.  "  This  is  the  story  of  a  very  remarkable 
event  in  the  life  of  one  of  my  brother  clergymen.  He 
and  I  became  acquainted  through  being  associated  with 
each  other  in  the  management  of  a  Missionary  Society. 
I  saw  him  for  the  last  time  in  London  when  lie  was  about 
to  leave  his  country  and  his  friends  forever,  and  was  then 
informed  of  the  circumstances  which  have  aiforded  the 
material  for  this  narrative." 


THE    ^UEE.N    OF    I1EAKTS.  297 


BROTHER  OWEN'S  STORY 

OF 

THE  PARSON'S  SCRUPLE. 

CHAPTER  I. 

IF  you  had  been  in  the  far  West  of  England  about 
thirteen  years  since,  and  if  you  had  happened  to  take 
up  one  of  the  Cornish  newspapers  on  a  certain  day  of 
the  month,  which  need  not  be  specially  mentioned,  you 
would  have  seen  this  notice  of  a  marriage  at  the  top  of  a 
column : 

On  the  third  instant,  at  the  parish  church,  the  Reverend  Alfred 
Carling,  Rector  of  Penliddy,  to  Emily  Harriet,  relict  of  the  late  Fergus 
Duncan,  Esq.,  of  Glcndarn,  N.  B. 

The  rector's  marriage  did  not  produce  a  very  favorable 
impression  in  the  town,  solely  in  consequence  of  the  un- 
accountable private  and  unpretending  manner  in  which 
the  ceremony  had  been  performed.  The  middle-aged 
bride  and  bridegroom  had  walked  quietly  to  church  one 
morning,  had  been  married  by  the  curate  before  any  one 
was  aware  of  it,  and  had  embarked  immediately  after- 
ward  in  the  steamer  for  Tenby,  where  they  proposed  to 
pass  their  honeymoon.  The  bride  being  a  stranger  at 
Penliddy,  all  inquiries  about  her  previous  history  were 
fruitless,  and  the  townspeople  had  no  alternative  but  to 
trust  to  their  own  investigations  for  enlightenment  when 
the  rector  and  his  wife  came  home  to  settle  among  their 
friends. 

After  six  weeks'  absence  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Carling  return- 


298  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

ed,  and  the  simple  story  of  the  rector's  courtship  and 
marriage  was  gathered  together  in  fragments,  by  inquis- 
itive friends,  from  his  own  lips  and  from  the  lips  of  his 
wife. 

Mr.  Carling  and  Mrs.  Duncan  had  met  at  Torquay. 
The  rector,  who  had  exchanged  houses  and  duties  for 
the  season  with  a  brother  clergyman  settled  at  Torquay, 
had  called  on  Mrs.  Duncan  in  his  clerical  capacity,  and 
had  come  away  from  the  interview  deeply  impressed  and 
interested  by  the  widow's  manners  and  conversation. 
The  visits  were  repeated ;  the  acquaintance  grew  into 
friendship,  and  the  friendship  into  love — ardent,  devoted 
love  of  both  sides. 

Middle-aged  man  though  he  was,  this  was  Mr.  Carling's 
first  attachment,  and  it  was  met  by  the  same  freshness 
of  feeling  on  the  lady's  part.  Her  life  with  her  first  hus- 
band had  not  been  a  happy  one.  She  had  made  the  fatal 
mistake  of  marrying  to  please  her  parents  rather  than 
herself,  and  had  repented  it  ever  afterward.  On  her 
husband's  death  his  family  had  not  behaved  well  to  her, 
and  she  had  passed  her  widowhood,  with  her  only  child, 
a  daughter,  in  the  retirement  of  a  small  Scotch  town 
many  miles  away  from  the  home  of  her  married  life. 
After  a  time  the  little  girl's  health  had  begun  to  fail, 
and,  by  the  doctor's  advice,  she  had  migrated  southward 
to  the  mild  climate  of  Torquay.  The  change  had  proved 
to  be  of  no  avail,  and  rather  more  than  a  year  since  the 
child  had  died.  The  place  where  her  darling  was  buried 
was  a  sacred  place  to  her,  and  she  had  remained  a  resident 
at  Torquay.  Her  position  in  the  world  was  now  a  lone- 
ly one.  She  was  herself  an  only  child ;  her  father  and 
mother  were  both  dead ;  and,  excepting  cousins,  her  one 
near  relation  left  alive  was  a  maternal  uncle  living  in 
London. 

These  particulars  were  all  related  simply  and  unaffect 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  299 

edly  before  Mr.  Carling  ventured  on  the  confession  of  his 
attachment.  When  he  made  his  proposal  of  marriage, 
Mrs.  Duncan  received  it  with  an  excess  of  agitation  which 
astonished  and  almost  alarmed  the  inexperienced  clergy- 
man. As  soon  as  she  could  speak,  she  begged  with  ex- 
traordinary earnestness  and  anxiety  for  a  week  to  con- 
sider her  answer,  and  requested  Mr.  Carling  not  to  visit 
her  on  any  account  until  the  week  had  expired. 

The  next  morning  she  and  her  maid  departed  for  Lon- 
don. They  did  not  return  until  the  week  for  considera- 
tion had  expired.  On  the  eighth  day  Mr.  Carling  called 
again  and  was  accepted. 

The  proposal  to  make  the  marriage  as  private  as  pos- 
sible came  from  the  lady.  She  had  been  to  London  to 
consult  her  uncle  (whose  health,  she  regretted  to  say, 
would  not  allow  him  to  travel  to  Cornwall  to  give  his 
niece  away  at  the  altar),  and  he  agreed  with  Mrs.  Duncan 
that  the  wedding  could  not  be  too  private  and  unpre- 
tending. If  it  was  made  public,  the  family  of  her  first 
husband  would  expect  cards  to  be  sent  to  them,  and  a 
renewal  of  intercourse,  which  would  be  painful  on  both 
sides,  might  be  the  consequence.  Other  friends  in  Scot- 
land, again,  would  resent  her  marrying  a  second  time  at 
her  age,  and  would  distress  her  and  annoy  her  future 
husband  in  many  ways.  She  was  anxious  to  break  alto- 
gether with  her  past  existence,  and  to  begin  a  new  and 
happier  life  untrammeled  by  any  connection  with  former 
times  and  troubles.  She  urged  these  points  as  she  had 
received  the  offer  of  marriage,  with  an  agitation  which 
was  almost  painful  to  see.  This  peculiarity  in  her  con- 
duct, however,  which  might  have  irritated  some  men, 
and  rendered  others  distrustful,  had  no  unfavorable  ef- 
fect on  Mr.  Carling.  He  set  it  down  to  an  excess  of 
sensitiveness  and  delicacy  wrhich  charmed  him.  He  was 
himself — though  he  never  would  confess  it — a  shy,  nerv- 


300  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

ous  man  by  nature.  Ostentation  of  any  sort  was  some- 
thing which  he  shrank  from  instinctively,  even  in  the 
simplest  aifairs  of  daily  life;  and  his  future  wife's  pro- 
posal to  avoid  all  the  usual  ceremony  and  publicity  of  a 
wedding  was  therefore  more  than  agreeable  to  him — it 
was  a  positive  relief. 

The  courtship  was  kept  secret  at  Torquay,  and  the 
marriage  was  celebrated  privately  at  Penliddy.  It  found 
its  way  into  the  local  newspapers  as  a  matter  of  course, 
but  it  was  not,  as  usual  in  such  cases,  also  advertised  in 
the  Times.  Both  husband  and  wife  were  equally  happy 
in  the  enjoyment  of  their  new  life,  and  equally  unsocial 
in  taking  no  measures  whatever  to  publish  it  to  others. 

Such  was  the  story  of  the  rector's  marriage.  Socially, 
Mr.  Carling's  position  was  but  little  affected  either  way 
by  the  change  in  his  life.  As  a  bachelor,  his  circle  of 
friends  had  been  a  small  oue,  and  when  he  married  he 
made  no  attempt  to  enlarge  it.  He  had  never  been  pop- 
ular with  the  inhabitants  of  his  parish  generally.  Es- 
sentially a  weak  man,  he  was,  like  other  weak  men,  only 
capable  of  asserting  himself  positively  in  serious  matters 
by  running  into  extremes.  As  a  consequence  of  this 
moral  defect,  he  presented  some  singular  anomalies  in 
character.  In  the  ordinary  affairs  of  life  he  was  the  gen- 
tlest and  most  yielding  of  men,  but  in  all  that  related 
to  strictness  of  religious  principle  he  was  the  sternest 
and  the  most  aggressive  of  fanatics.  In  the  pulpit  he 
was  a  preacher  of  merciless  sermons — an  interpreter  of 
the  Bible  by  the  letter  rather  than  by  the  spirit,  as  piti- 
less and  gloomy  as  one  of  the  Puritans  of  old ;  while,  on 
the  other  hand,  by  his  own  fireside  he  was  considerate, 
forbearing,  and  humble  almost  to  a  fault.  As  a  neces- 
sary result  of  this  singular  inconsistency  of  character,  he 
was  feared,  and  sometimes  even  disliked,  by  the  mem- 
bers of  his  congregation  who  only  knew  him  as  their 


THE  QUEEN*  OF  HEARTS.  301 

pastor,  and  he  was  prized  and  loved  by  the  small  circle 
of  friends  who  also  knew  him  as  a  man. 

Those  friends  gathered  round  him  more  closely  and 
more  affectionalely  than  ever  after  his  marriage,  not  on 
his  own  account  only,  but  influenced  also  by  the  attrac- 
tions that  they  found  in  the  society  of  his  wife.  Her  re- 
finement and  gentleness  of  manner;  her  extraordinary 
accomplishments  as  a  musician  ;  her  unvarying  sweet- 
ness of  temper,  and  her  quick,  winning,  womanly  intel- 
ligence in  conversation,  charmed  every  one  who  ap- 
proached her.  She  was  quoted  as  a  model  wife  and 
woman  by  all  her  husband's  friends,  and  she  amply  de- 
served the  character  that  they  gave  her.  Although  no 
children  came  to  cheer  it,  a  happier  and  a  more  admira- 
ble married  life  has  seldom  been  witnessed  in  this  world 
than  the  life  which  was  once  to  be  seen  in  the  rectory 
house  at  Penliddy. 

With  these  necessary  explanations,  that  preliminary 
part  of  my  narrative  of  which  the  events  may  be  massed 
together  generally,  for  brevity's  sake,  comes  to  a  close. 
What  I  have  next  to  tell  is  of  a  deeper  and  a  more  se- 
rious interest,  and  must  be  carefully  related  in  detail. 

The  rector  and  his  wife  had  lived  together  without, 
as  I  honestly  believe,  a  harsh  word  or  an  unkind  look 
once  passing  between  them  for  upward  of  two  years, 
when  Mr.  Carling  took  his  first  step  toward  the  fatal  fu- 
ture that  was  awaiting  him  by  devoting  his  leisure  hours 
to  the  apparently  simple  and  harmless  occupation  of 
writing  a  pamphlet. 

He  had  been  connected  for  many  years  with  one  of 
our  great  Missionary  Societies,  and  had  taken  as  active 
a  part  as  a  country  clergyman  could  iu  the  management 
of  its  affairs.  At  the  period  of  which  I  speak,  certain 
influential  members  of  the  society  had  proposed  a  plan 
for  greatly  extending  the  sphere  of  its  operations,  trust- 


302  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

ing  to  a  proportionate  increase  in  the  annual  subscrip- 
tions to  defray  the  additional  expenses  of  the  new  move- 
ment. The  question  was  not  now  brought  forward  for 
the  first  time.  It  had  been  agitated  eight  years  pre- 
viously, and  the  settlement  of  it  had  been  at  that  time 
deferred  to  a  future  opportunity.  The  revival  of  the 
project,  as  usual  in  such  cases,  split  the  working  mem- 
bers of  the  society  into  two  parties;  one  party  cautious- 
ly objecting  to  run  any  risks,  the  other  hopefully  de- 
claring that  the  venture  was  a  safe  one,  and  that  success 
was  sure  to  attend  it.  Mr.  Carling  sided  enthusiastical- 
ly with  the  members  who  espoused  this  latter  side  of  the 
question,  and  the  object  of  his  pamphlet  was  to  address 
the  subscribers  to  the  society  on  the  subject,  and  so  to 
interest  them  in  it  as  to  win  their  charitable  support,  on 
a  larger  scale  than  usual,  to  the  new  project. 

He  had  worked  hard  at  his  pamphlet,  and  had  got 
more  than  half  way  through  it,  when  he  found  himself 
brought  to  a  stand-still  for  want  of  certain  facts  which 
had  been  produced  on  the  discussion  of  the  question 
eight  years  since,  and  which  were  necessary  to  the  full 
and  fair  statement  of  his  case. 

At  first  he  thought  of  writing  to  the  secretary  of  the 
society  for  information  ;  but,  remembering  that  he  had 
not  held  his  office  more  than  two  years,  he  had  thought 
it  little  likely  that  this  gentleman  would  be  able  to  help 
him,  and  looked  back  to  his  own  Diary  of  the  period  to 
see  if  he  had  made  any  notes  in  it  relating  to  the  origin- 
al discussion  of  the  affair.  He  found  a  note  referring  in 
general  terms  only  to  the  matter  in  hand,  but  alluding  at 
the  end  to  a  report  in  the  Times  of  the  proceedings  of 
a  deputation  from  the  society  which  had  waited  on  a 
member  of  the  government  of  that  day,  and  to  certain 
letters  to  the  editor  which  had  followed  the  publication 
of  the  report.  The  note  described  these  letters  as  "  very 


THE    QUEEN    OP    HEARTS.  303 

important,"  and  Mr.  Carling  felt,  as  he  put  his  Diary 
away  again,  that  the  successful  conclusion  of  his  pam- 
phlet now  depended  on  his  being  able  to  get  access  to 
the  back  numbers  of  the  Times  of  eight  years  since. 

It  was  winter  time  when  he  was  thus  stopped  in  his 
work,  and  the  prospect  of  a  journey  to  London  (the  only 
place  he  knew  of  at  which  files  of  the  paper  were  to  be 
found)  did  not  present  many  attractions ;  and  yet  he 
could  sec  no  other  and  easier  means  of  effecting  his  ob- 
ject. After  considering  for  a  little  while  and  arriving 
at  no  positive  conclusion,  he  left  the  study,  and  went  into 
the  drawing-room  to  consult  his  wife. 

He  found  her  working  industriously  by  the  blazing  fire. 
She  looked  so  happy  and  comfortable  —  so  gentle  and 
charming  in  her  pretty  little  lace  cap,  and  her  warm  brown 
morning-dress,  with  its  bright  cherry-colored  ribbons, 
and  its  delicate  swan's-down  trimming  circling  round 
her  neck  and  nestling  over  her  bosom,  that  he  stooped 
and  kissed  her  with  the  tenderness  of  his  bridegroom 
days  before  he  spoke.  When  he  told  her  of  the  cause 
that  had  suspended  his  literary  occupation,  she  listened, 
with  the  sensation  of  the  kiss  still  lingering  in  her  down- 
cast eyes  and  her  smiling  lips,  until  he  came  to  the  sub- 
ject of  his  Diary  and  its  reference  to  the  newspaper. 

As  he  mentioned  the  name  of  the  Times,  she  altered 
and  looked  him  straight  in  the  face  gravely. 

"  Can  you  suggest  any  plan,  love,"  he  went  on,  "  which 
may  save  me  the  necessity  of  a  journey  to  London  at  this 
bleak  time  of  the  year?  I  must  positively  have  this  in- 
formation, and,  so  far  as  I  can  see,  London  is  the  only 
place  at  which  I  can  hope  to  meet  with  a  file  of  the 
Times." 

"  A  file  of  the  Times  ?"  she  repeated. 

"  Yes — of  eight  years  since,"  he  said. 

The  instant  the  words  passed  his  lips  he  saw  her  face 


304  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

overspread  by  a  ghastly  paleness ;  her  eyes  fixed  on  him 
with  a  strange  mixture  of  rigidity  and  vacancy  in  their 
look  ;  her  hands,  with  her  work  held  tight  in  them,  drop- 
ped slowly  on  her  lap,  and  a  shiver  ran  through  her  from 
head  to  foot. 

He  sprang  to  his  feet,  and  snatched  the  smelling-salts 
from  her  work-table,  thinking  she  was  going  to  faint. 
She  put  the  bottle  from  her,  when  he  offered  it,  with  a 
hand  that  thrilled  him  with  the  deadly  coldness  of  its 
touch,  and  said,  in  a  whisper, 

"A  sudden  chill,  dear — let  me  go  up  stairs  and  lie 
down." 

He  took  her  to  her  room.  As  he  laid  her  down  on 
the  bed,  she  caught  his  hand,  and  said,  entreatingly, 

"  You  won't  go  to  London,  darling,  and  leave  me  here 
ill  ?" 

He  promised  that  nothing  should  separate  him  from 
her  until  she  was  well  again,  and  then  ran  down  stairs  to 
send  for  the  doctor.  The  doctor  came,  and  pronounced 
that  Mrs.  Carling  was  only  suffering  from  a  nervous  at- 
tack ;  that  there  was  not  the  least  reason  to  be  alarmed  ; 
and  that,  with  proper  care,  she  would  be  well  again  in  a 
few  days. 

Both  husband  and  wife  had  a  dinner  engagement  in 
the  town  for  that  evening.  Mr.  Carling  proposed  to 
write  an  apology  and  to  remain  with  his  wife.  But  she 
would  not  hear  of  his  abandoning  the  party  on  her  ac- 
count. The  doctor  also  recommended  that  his  patient 
should  be  left  to  her  maid's  care,  to  fall  asleep  under  the 
influence  of  the  quieting  medicine  which  he  meant  to 
give  her.  Yielding  to  this  advice,  Mr.  Carling  did  his 
best  to  suppress  his  own  anxieties,  and  went  to  the  din- 
ner-party. 


1-HE   QUEEN   OF    HEAETS.  305 


CHAPTER  II. 

AMONG  the  guests  whom  the  rector  met  was  a  gentle- 
man named  Rambert,  a  single  man  of  large  fortune, 
well  known  in  the  neighborhood  of  Penliddy  as  the  own- 
er of  a  noble  country-seat  and  the  possessor  of  a  magnif- 
icent library. 

Mr.  Rambert  (with  whom  Mr.  Carling  was  well  ac- 
quainted) greeted  him  at  the  dinner-party  with  friendly 
expressions  of  regret  at  the  time  that  had  elapsed  since 
they  had  last  seen  each  other,  and  mentioned  that  he  had 
recently  been  adding  to  his  collection  of  books  some  rare 
old  volumes  of  theology,  which  he  thought  the  rector 
might  find  it  useful  to  look  over.  Mr.  Carling,  with  the 
necessity  of  finishing  his  pamphlet  uppermost  in  his  mind, 
replied,  jestingly,  that  the  species  of  literature  which  he 
was  just  then  most  interested  in  examining  happened  to 
be  precisely  of  the  sort  which  (excepting  novels,  perhaps) 
had  least  affinity  to  theological  writing.  The  necessary 
explanation  followed  this  avowal  as  a  matter  of  course, 
and,  to  Mr.  Carling's  great  delight,  his  friend  turned  on 
him  gayly  with  the  most  surprising  and  satisfactory  of 
answers  : 

"  You  don't  know  half  the  resources  of  my  miles  of 
bookshelves,"  he  said,  "or  you  would  never  have  thought 
of  going  to  London  for  what  you  can  get  from  me.  A 
whole  side  of  one  of  my  rooms  up  stairs  is  devoted  to 
periodical  literature.  I  have  reviews,  magazines,  and 
three  weekly  newspapers,  bound,  in  each  case,  from  the 
first  number;  and,  what  is  just  now  more  to  your  pur- 
pose, I  have  the  Times  for  the  last  fifteen  years  in  huge 
half-yearly  volumes.  Give  me  the  date  to-night,  and  you 


306  THE  QUEEN  OF  HEARTS. 

shall  have  the  volume  you  want  by  two  o'clock  to-mor 
row  afternoon." 

The  necessary  information  was  given  at  once;  and, 
with  a  great  sense  of  relief,  so  far  as  his  literary  anxieties 
were  concerned,  Mr.  Carling  went  home  early  to  see  what 
the  quieting  medicine  had  done  for  his  wife. 

She  had  dozed  a  little,  but  had  not  slept.  However, 
she  was  evidently  better,  for  she  was  able  to  take  an  in- 
terest in  the  sayings  and  doings  at  the  dinner-party,  and 
questioned  her  husband  about  the  guests  and  the  conver- 
sation with  all  a  woman's  curiosity  about  the  minutest 
matters.  She  lay  with  her  face  turned  toward  him,  and 
her  eyes  meeting  his,  until  the  course  of  her  inquiries 
drew  an  answer  from  him,  which  informed  her  of  his  for- 
tunate discovery  in  relation  to  Mr.  Rambert's  library,  and 
of  the  prospect  it  afforded  of  his  resuming  his  labors  the 
next  day. 

When  he  mentioned  this  circumstance,  she  suddenly 
turned  her  head  on  the  pillow  so  that  her  face  was  hid- 
den from  him,  and  he  could  see  through  the  counterpane 
that  the  shivering,  which  he  had  observed  when  her  ill- 
ness had  seized  her  in  the  morning,  had  returned  again. 

"  I  am  only  cold,"  she  said,  in  a  hurried  way,  with  her 
face  under  the  clothes. 

He  rang  for  the  maid,  and  had  a  fresh  covering  placed 
on  the  bed.  Observing  that  she  seemed  unwilling  to  be 
disturbed,  he  did  not  remove  the  clothes  from  her  face 
when  he  wished  her  good-night,  but  pressed  his  lips  on 
her  head,  and  patted  it  gently  with  his  hand.  She  shrank 
at  the  touch  as  if  it  hurt  her,  light  as  it  was,  and  he  went 
down  stairs,  resolved  to  send  for  the  doctor  again  if  she 
did  not  get  to  rest  on  being  left  quiet.  In  less  than  half 
an  hour  afterward  the  maid  came  down  and  relieved  his 
anxiety  by  reporting  that  her  mistress  was  asleep. 

The  next  morning  he  found  her  in  better  spirits.     Her 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  307 

eyes,  she  said,  felt  too  weak  to  bear  the  light,  so  she  kept 
the  bedroom  darkened.  But  in  other  respects  she  had 
little  to  complain  of. 

After  answering  her  husband's  first  inquiries,  she  ques- 
tioned him  about  his  plans  for  the  day.  He  had  letters  to 
write  which  would  occupy  him  until  twelve  o'clock.  At 
two  o'clock  he  expected  the  volume  of  the  Times  to  ar- 
rive, and  he  should  then  devote  the  rest  of  ^he  afternoon 
to  his  work.  After  hearing  what  his  plans  were,  Mrs. 
Carling  suggested  that  he  should  ride  out  after  he  had 
done  his  letters,  so  as  to  get  some  exercise  at  the  fine 
part  of  the  day ;  and  she  then  reminded  him  that  a  longer 
time  than  usual  had  elapsed  since  he  had  been  to  see  a 
certain  old  pensioner  of  his,  who  had  nursed  him  as  a 
child,  and  who  was  now  bedridden,  in  a  village  at  some 
distance,  called  Tringweighton.  Although  the  rector 
saw  no  immediate  necessity  for  making  this  charitable 
visit,  the  more  especially  as  the  ride  to  the  village  and 
back,  and  the  intermediate  time  devoted  to  gossip,  would 
occupy  at  least  two  hours  and  a  half,  he  assented  to  his 
wife's  proposal,  perceiving  that  she  urged  it  with  unus- 
ual earnestness,  and  being  unwilling  to  thwart  her,  even 
in  a  trifle,  at  a  time  when  she  was  ill. 

Accordingly,  his  horse  was  at  the  door  at  twelve  pre- 
cisely. Impatient  to  get  back  to  the  precious  volume  of 
the  Times,  he  rode  so  much  faster  than  usual,  and  so 
shortened  his  visit  to  the  old  woman,  that  he  was  home 
again  by  a  quarter  past  two.  Ascertaining  from  the 
servant  who  opened  the  door  that  the  volume  had  been 
left  by  Mr.  Rambert's  messenger  punctually  at  two,  he 
ran  up  to  his  wife's  room  to  tell  her  about  his  visit  be- 
fore he  secluded  himself  for  the  rest  of  the  afternoon 
over  his  work. 

On  entering  the  bedroom  he  found  it  still  darkened, 
and  he  was  struck  by  a  smell  of  burnt  paper  in  it. 

14 


308  THE    QUEEX    OF    IIEAKTS. 

His  wife  (who  was  now  dressed  in  her  wrapper  and 
lying  on  the  sofa)  accounted  for  the  smell  by  telling  him 
that  she  had  fancied  the  room  felt  close,  and  that  she  had 
burnt  some  paper — being  afraid  of  the  cold  air  if  she 
opened  the  window — to  fumigate  it.  Her  eyes  were  ev- 
idently still  weak,  for  she  kept  her  hand  over  them  while 
she  spoke.  After  jemaining  with  her  long  enough  to 
relate  the  f^w  trivial  events  of  his  ride,  Mr.  Carling  de- 
scended to  his  study  to  occupy  himself  at  last  with  the 
volume  of  the  Times. 

It  lay  on  his  table  in  the  shape  of  a  large  flat  brown 
paper  package.  On  proceeding  to  undo  the  covering,  he 
observed  that  it  had  been  very  carelessly  tied  up.  The 
strings  were  crooked  and  loosely  knotted,  and  the  direc- 
tion bearing  his  name  and  address,  instead  of  being  in 
the  middle  of  the  paper,  was  awkwardly  folded  over  at 
the  edge  of  the  volume.  However,  his  business  was 
with  the  inside  of  the  parcel ;  so  he  tossed  away  the 
covering  and  the  string,  and  began  at  once  to  hunt 
through  the  volume  for  the  particular  number  of  the  pa- 
per which  he  wished  first  to  consult. 

He  soon  found  it,  with  the  report  of  the  speeches  de- 
livered by  the  members  of  the  deputation,  and  the  an- 
swer returned  by  the  minister.  After  reading  through 
the  report,  and  putting  a  mark  in  the  place  where  it  oc- 
curred, he  turned  to  the  next  day's  number  of  the  paper, 
to  see  what  farther  hints  on  the  subject  the  letters  ad- 
dressed to  the  editor  might  happen  to  contain. 

To  his  inexpressible  vexation  and  amazement,  he  found 
that  one  number  of  the  paper  was  missing. 

He  bent  the  two  sides  of  the  volume  back,  looked 
closely  between  the  leaves,  and  saw  immediately  that  the 
missing  number  had  been  cut  out. 

A  vague  sense  of  something  like  alarm  began  to  min- 
gie  with  his  first  feeling  of  disappointment.  He  wrote 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  .309 

at  once  to  Mr.  Rambert,  mentioning  the  discovery  he 
had  just  made,  and  sent  the  note  oft'  by  his  groom,  with 
orders  to  the  man  to  wait  for  an  answer. 

The  reply  with  which  the  servant  returned  was  almost 
insolent  in  the  shortness  and  coolness  of  its  tone.  Mr. 
Kambert  had  no  books  in  his  library  which  were  not  in 
perfect  condition.  The  volume  of  the  Times  had  left 
his  house  perfect,  and  whatever  blame  might  attach  to 
the  mutilation  of  it  rested  therefore  on  other  shoulders 
than  those  of  the  owner. 

Like  many  other  weak  men,  Mr.  Carling  was  secretly 
touchy  on  the  subject  of  his  dignity.  After  reading  the 
note  and  questioning  his  servants,  who  were  certain  that 
the  volume  had  not  been  touched  till  he  had  opened  it, 
he  resolved  that  the  missing  number  of  the  Times  should 
be  procured  at  any  expense  and  inserted  in  its  place ; 
that  the  volume  should  be  sent  back  instantly  without  a 
word  of  comment ;  and  that  no  more  books  from  Mr. 
Rambert's  library  should  enter  his  house. 

He  walked  up  and  down  the  study  considering  what 
first  step  he  should  take  to  effect  the  purpose  in  view. 
Under  the  quickening  influence  of  his  irritation,  an  idea 
occurred  to  him,  which,  if  it  had  only  entered  his  mind 
the  day  before,  might  probably  have  proved  the  means 
of  saving  him  from  placing  himself  under  an  obligation 
to  Mr.  Rambert.  He  resolved  to  write  immediately  to 
his  bookseller  and  publisher  in  London  (who  knew  him 
well  as  an  old  and  excellent  customer),  mentioning  the 
date  of  the  back  number  of  the  Times  that  was  required, 
and  authorizing  the  publisher  to  offer  any  reward  he 
judged  necessary  to  any  person  who  might  have  the 
means  of  procuring  it  at  the  office  of  the  paper  or  else- 
where. This  letter  he  wrote  and  dispatched  in  good 
time  for  the  London  post,  and  then  went  up  stairs  to  see 
his  wife  and  to  tell  her  what  had  happened. 


•310  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

Her  room  was  still  darkened  and  she  was  still  on  the 
sofa.  On  the  subject  of  the  missing  number  she  said 
nothing,  but  of  Mr.  Rambert  and  his  note  she  spoke  with 
the  most  sovereign  contempt.  Of  course  the  pompous 
old  fool  was  mistaken,  and  the  proper  thing  to  do  was 
to  send  back  the  volume  instantly  and  take  no  more  no- 
tice of  him. 

"  It  shall  be  sent  back,"  said  Mr.  Carling,  "  but  not  till 
the  missing  number  is  replaced."  And  he  then  told  her 
what  he  had  done. 

The  effect  of  that  simple  piece  of  information  on  Mrs. 
Carling  was  so  extraordinary  and  so  unaccountable  that 
her  husband  fairly  stood  aghast.  For  the  first  time 
since  their  marriage  he  saw  her  temper  suddenly  in  a 
flame.  She  started  up  from  the  sofa  and  walked  about 
the  room  as  if  she  had  lost  her  senses,  upbraiding  him 
for  making  the  weakest  of  concessions  to  Mr.  Rambert's 
insolent  assumption  that  the  rector  was  to  blame.  If 
she  could  only  have  laid  hands  on  that  letter,  she  would 
have  consulted  her  husband's  dignity  and  independence 
by  putting  it  in  the  fire !  She  hoped  and  prayed  the 
number  of  the  paper  might  not  be  found !  In  fact,  it 
was  certain  that  the  number,  after  all  these  years,  could 
not  possibly  be  hunted  up.  The  idea  of  his  acknowledg- 
ing himself  to  be  in  the  wrong  in  that  way,  when  he 
knew  himself  to  be  in  the  right !  It  was  almost  ridicu- 
lous— no,  it  was  quite  ridiculous  1  And  she  threw  her- 
self back  on  the  sofa,  and  suddenly  burst  out  laughing. 

At  the  first  wrord  of  remonstrance  wrhieh  fell  from  her 
husband's  lips  her  mood  changed  again  in  an  instant. 
She  sprang  up  once  more,  kissed  him  passionately,  with 
the  tears  streaming  from  her  eyes,  and  implored  him  to 
leave  her  alone  to  recover  herself.  He  quitted  the  room 
so  seriously  alarmed  about  her  that  he  resolved  to  go  to 
the  doctor  privately  and  question  him  on  the  spot.  There 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  311 

was  an  unspeakable  dread  in  his  mind  that  the  nervous 
attack  from  which  she  had  been  pronounced  to  be  suf- 
fering might  be  a  mere  phrase  intended  to  prepare  him 
for  the  future  disclosure  of  something  infinitely  and  in- 
describably worse. 

The  doctor,  on  hearing  Mr.  Carling's  report,  exhibited 
no  surprise  and  held  to  his  opinion.  Her  nervous  sys- 
tem was  out  of  order,  and  her  husband  had  been  need- 
lessly frightened  by  a  hysterical  paroxysm.  If  she  did 
not  get  better  in  a  week,  change  of  scene  might  then  be 
tried.  In  the  mean  time,  there  was  not  the  least  cause 
for  alarm. 

On  the  next  day  she  was  quieter,  but  she  hardly  spoke 
at  all.  At  night  she  slept  well,  and  Mr.  Carling's  faith 
in  the  medical  man  revived  again. 

The  morning  after  was  the  morning  which  would  bring 
the  answer  from  the  publisher  in  London.  The  rector's 
study  was  on  the  ground  floor,  and  when  he  heard  the 
postman's  knock,  being  especially  anxious  that  morning 
about  his  correspondence,  he  went  out  into  the  hall  to  re- 
ceive his  letters  the  moment  they  were  put  on  the  table. 

It  was  not  the  footman  who  had  answered  the  door,  as 
usual,  but  Mrs.  Carling's  maid.  She  had  taken  the  let- 
ters from  the  postman,  and  she  was  going  away  with 
them  up  stairs. 

He  stopped  her,  and  asked  her  why  she  did  not  put 
the  letters  on  the  hall  table  as  usual.  The  maid,  looking 
very  much  confused,  said  that  her  mistress  had  desired 
that  whatever  the  postman  had  brought  that  morning 
should  be  carried  up  to  her  room.  He  took  the  letters 
abruptly  from  the  girl,  without  asking  any  more  ques- 
tions, and  went  back  into  his  study. 

Up  to  this  time  no  shadow  of  a  suspicion  had  fallen  on 
his  mind.  Hitherto  there  had  been  a  simple  obvious  ex- 
planation for  every  unusual  event  that  had  occurred 


312  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

during  the  last  three  or  four  days ;  but  this  last  circum- 
stance in  connection  with  the  letters  was  not  to  be  ac- 
counted for.  Nevertheless,  even  now,  it  was  not  distrust 
of  his  wife  that  was  busy  at  his  mind — he  was  too  fond 
of  her  and  too  proud  of  her  to  feel  it — the  sensation  was 
more  like  uneasy  surprise.  He  longed  to  go  and  ques- 
tion her,  and  get  a  satisfactory  answer,  and  have  done 
with  it.  But  there  was  a  voice  speaking  within  him  that 
had  never  made  itself  heard  before — a  voice  with  a  per- 
sistent warning  in  it,  that  said,  Wait ;  and  look  at  your 
letters  first. 

He  spread  them  out  on  the  table  with  hands  that  trem- 
bled he  knew  not  why.  Among  them  was  the  back 
number  of  the  Times  for  which  he  had  written  to  Lon- 
don, with  a  letter  from  the  publisher  explaining  the 
means  by  which  the  copy  had  been  procured. 

He  opened  the  newspaper  with  a  vague  feeling  of 
alarm  at  finding  that  those  letters  to  the  editor  which  he 
had  been  so  eager  to  read,  and  that  perfecting  of  the  mu- 
tilated volume  which  he  had  been  so  anxious  to  accom- 
plish, had  become  objects  of  secondary  importance  in  his 
mind.  An  inexplicable  curiosity  about  the  general  con- 
tents of  the  paper  was  now  the  one  moving  influence 
which  asserted  itself  within  him.  He  spread  open  the 
broad  sheet  on  the  table. 

The  first  page  on  which  his  eye  fell  was  the  page  on 
the  right-hand  side.  It  contained  those  very  letters — 
three  in  number — which  he  had  once  been  so  anxious  to 
see.  He  tried  to  read  them,  but  no  effort  could  fix  his 
wandering  attention.  He  looked  aside  to  the  opposite 
page,  on  the  left  hand.  It  was  the  page  that  contained 
the  leading  articles. 

They  were  three  in  number.  The  first  was  on  foreign 
politics;  the  second  was  a  sarcastic  commentary  on  a  re- 
cent division  in  the  House  of  Lords ;  the  third  was  one- 


THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS.  313 

of  those  articles  on  social  subjects  which  have  greatly 
and  honorably  helped  to  raise  the  reputation  of  the  Tunes 
above  all  contest  and  all  rivalry. 

The  lines  of  this  third  article  which  first  caught  his 
eye  comprised  the  opening  sentence  of  the  second  para- 
graph, and  contained  these  words : 

It  appears,  from  the  narrative  which  will  be  found  in  another  part 
of  our  columns,  that  this  unfortunate  woman  married,  in  the  spring 
of  the  year  18 — ,  one  Mr.  Fergus  Duncan,  of  Glendarn,  in  the  High- 
lands of  Scotland 

The  letters  swam  and  mingled  together  under  his  eyes 
before  he  could  go  on  to  the  next  sentence.  His  wife 
exhibited  as  an  object  for  public  compassion  in  the  Times 
newspaper !  On  the  brink  of  the  dreadful  discovery  that 
was  advancing  on  him,  his  mind  reeled  back,  and  a  dead- 
ly faintness  came  over  him.  There  was  water  on  a  side- 
table — he  drank  a  deep  draught  of  it — roused  himself — 
seized  on  the  newspaper  with  both  hands,  as  if  it  had 
been  a  living  thing  that  could  feel  the  desperate  resolu- 
tion of  his  grasp,  and  read  the  article  through,  sentence 
by  sentence,  word  by  word. 

The  subject  was  the  Law  of  Divorce,  and  the  example 
quoted  was  the  example  of  his  wife. 

At  that  time  England  stood  disgracefully  alone  as  the 
one  civilized  country  in  the  world  having  a  divorce  law 
for  the  husband  which  was  not  also  a  divorce  law  for  the 
wife.  The  writer  in  the  Times  boldly  and  eloquently 
exposed  this  discreditable  anomaly  in  the  administration 
of  justice;  hinted  delicately  at  the  unutterable  wrongs 
suffered  by  Mrs.  Duncan ;  and  plainly  showed  that  she 
was  indebted  to  the  accident  of  having  been  married  in 
Scotland,  and  to  her  consequent  right  of  appeal  to  the 
Scotch  tribunals,  for  a  full  and  final  release  from  the  tie 
that  bound  her  to  the  vilest  of  husbands,  which  the  En- 
glish law  of  that  day  would  have  mercilessly  refused, 


314  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

He  read  that.  Other  men  might  have  gone  on  to  the 
narrative  extracted  from  the  Scotch  newspaper.  But  at 
the  last  word  of  the  article  he  stopped. 

The  newspaper,  and  the  unread  details  which  it  con- 
tained, lost  all  hold  on  his  attention  in  an  instant,  and,  in 
their  stead,  living  and  burning  on  his  mind,  like  the  Let- 
ters of  Doom  on  the  walls  of  Belshazzar,  there  rose  up  in 
judgment  against  him  the  last  words  of  a  verse  in  the 
Gospel  of  Saint  Luke — 

"  Whosoever  marrieth  her  that  is  put  away  from  her 
husband^  committeth  adultery" 

He  had  preached  from  these  words.  He  had  warned 
his  hearers,  with  the  whole  strength  of  the  fanatical  sin- 
cerity that  was  in  him,  to  beware  of  prevaricating  with 
the  prohibition  Avhich  that  verse  contained,  and  to  accept 
it  as  literally,  unreservedly,  finally  forbidding  the  mar- 
riage of  a  divorced  woman.  He  had  insisted  on  that 
plain  interpretation  of  plain  words  in  terms  which  had 
made  his  congregation  tremble.  And  now  he  stood 
alone  in  the  secrecy  of  his  own  chamber  self-convicted 
of  the  deadly  sin  which  he  had  denounced — he  stood,  as 
he  had  told  the  wicked  among  his  hearers  that  they 
would  stand  at  the  Last  Day,  before  the  Judgment  Seat. 

He  was  unconscious  of  the  lapse  of  time ;  he  never 
knew  whether  it  was  many  minutes  or  few  before  the 
door  of  his  room  was  suddenly  and  softly  opened.  It 
did  open,  and  his  wife  came  in. 

In  her  white  dress,  with  a  white  shawl  thrown  over 
her  shoulders ;  her  dark  hair,  so  neat  and  glossy  at 
other  times,  hanging  tangled  about  her  colorless  cheeks, 
and  heightening  the  glassy  brightness  of  terror  in  her 
eyes — so  he  saw  her;  the  woman  put  away  from  her 
husband — the  woman  whose  love  had  made  his  life 
happy  and  had  stained  his  soul  with  a  deadly  sin. 

She  came  on  to  within  a  few  paces  of  him  without  a 


THE    Ql'EEN    OF    HEARTS.  315 

word  or  a  tear,  or  a  shadow  of  change  passing  over  the 
dreadful  rigidity  of  her  face.  She  looked  at  him  with  a 
strange  look ;  she  pointed  to  the  newspaper  crumpled  hi 
his  hand  with  a  strange  gesture ;  she  spoke  to  him  in  a 
strange  voice. 

"  You  know  it !"  she  said. 

His  eyes  met  hers — she  shrank  from  them — turned — 
and  laid  her  arms  and  her  head  heavily  against  the  wall. 

"  Oh,  Alfred,"  she  said,  "  I  was  so  lonely  in  the  world, 
and  I  Avas  so  fond  of  you !" 

The  woman's  delicacy,  the  woman's  trembling  tender-' 
ness  welled  up  from  her  heart,  and  touched  her  voice 
with  a  tone  of  its  old  sweetness  as  she  murmured  those 
simple  words. 

She  said  no  more.  Her  confession  of  her  fault,  her 
appeal  to  their  past  love  for  pardon,  were  both  poured 
forth  in  that  one  sentence.  She  left  it  to  his  own  heart 
to  tell  him  the  rest.  How  anxiously  her  vigilant  love 
had  followed  his  every  word  and  treasured  up  his  every 
opinion  in  the  days  when  they  first  met ;  how  weakly 
and  falsely,  and  yet  with  how  true  an  affection  for  him, 
she  had  shrunk  from  the  disclosure  which  she  knew  but 
too  well  would  have  separated  them  even  at  the  church 
door ;  how  desperately  she  had  fought  against  the  com- 
ing discovery  which  threatened  to  tear  her  from  the 
bosom  she  clung  to,  and  to  cast  her  out  into  the  world 
with  the  shadow  of  her  own  shame  to  darken  her  life  to 
the  end — all  this  she  left  him  to  feel ;  for  the  moment 
which  might  part  them  forever  was  the  moment  when 
she  knew  best  how  truly,  how  passionately  he  had  loved 
her. 

His  lips  trembled  as  he  stood  looking  at  her  in  silence, 
and  the  slow,  burning  tears  dropped  heavily,  one  by  one, 
down  his  cheeks.  The  natural  human  remembrance  of 
the  golden  days  of  their  companionship,  of  the  nights 

14* 


316  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

and  nights  when  that  dear  head — turned  away  from  him 
now  in  unutterable  misery  and  shame — had  nestled  itself 
so  fondly  and  so  happily  on  his  breast,  fought  hard  to 
silence  his  conscience,  to  root  out  his  dreadful  sense  of 
guilt,  to  tear  the  words  of  Judgment  from  their  ruthless 
hold  on  his  mind,  to  claim  him  in  the  sweet  names  of 
Pity  and  of  Love.  If  she  had  turned  and  looked  at  him 
at  that  moment,  their  next  words  Avould  have  been 
spoken  in  each  other's  arms.  But  the  oppression  of  her 
despair  under  his  silence  was  too  heavy  for  her,  and  she 
never  moved. 

He  forced  himself  to  look  away  from  her ;  he  struggled 
bard  to  break  the  silence  between  them. 

"  God  forgive  you,  Emily !"  he  said. 

As  her  name  passed  his  lips,  his  voice  failed  him,  and 
the  torture  at  his  heart  burst  its  way  out  in  sobs.  He 
hurried  to  the  door  to  spare  her  the  terrible  reproof  of 
the  grief  that  had  now  mastered  him.  When  he  passed 
her  she  turned  toward  him  with  a  faint  cry. 

He  caught  her  as  she  sank  forward,  and  saved  her 
from  dropping  on  the  floor.  For  the  last  time  his  arms 
closed  round  her.  For  the  last  time  his  lips  touched 
hers — cold  and  insensible  to  him  now.  He  laid  her  on 
the  sofa  and  went  out. 

One  of  the  female  servants  was  crossing  the  hall.  The 
girl  started  as  she  met  him,  and  turned  pale  at  the  sight 
of  his  face.  He  could  not  speak  to  her,  but  he  pointed 
to  the  study  door.  He  saw  her  go  into  the  room,  and 
then  left  the  house. 

He  never  entered  it  more,  and  he  and  his  wife  never 
met  again. 

Later  on  that  last  day,  a  sister  of  Mr.  Carling's  —  a 
married  woman  living  in  the  town — came  to  the  rectory. 
She  brought  an  open  note  with  her,  addressed  to  the  un- 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  317 

happy  mistress  of  the  house.     It  contained  these  few 
lines,  blotted  and  stained  with  tears : 

May  God  grant  us  both  the  time  for  repentance  !  If  I  had  loved 
you  less,  I  might  have  trusted  myself  to  see  you  again.  Forgive  me, 
and  pity  me,  and  remember  me  in  your  prayers,  as  I  shall  forgive, 
and  pity,  and  remember  you. 

He  had  tried  to  write  more,  but  the  pen  had  dropped 
from  his  hand.  His  sister's  entreaties  had  not  moved 
him.  After  giving  her  the  note  to  deliver,  he  had 
solemnly  charged  her  to  be  gentle  in  communicating  the 
tidings  that  she  bore,  and  had  departed  alone  for  London. 
He  heard  all  remonstrances  with  patience.  He  did  not 
deny  that  the  deception  of  which  his  wife  had  been 
guilty  was  the  most  pardonable  of  all  concealments  of 
the  truth,  because  it  sprang  from  her  love  for  him ;  but 
he  had  the  same  hopeless  answer  for  every  one  who 
tried  to  plead  with  him — the  verse  from  the  Gospel  of 
Saint  Luke. 

His  purpose  in  traveling  to  London  was  to  make  the 
necessary  arrangements  for  his  wife's  future  existence, 
and  then  to  get  employment  which  would  separate  him 
from  his  home  and  from  all  its  associations.  A  mission- 
ary expedition  to  one  of  the  Pacific  Islands  accepted  him 
as  a  volunteer.  Broken  in  body  and  spirit,  his  last  look 
of  England  from  the  deck  of  the  ship  was  his  last  look 
at  land.  A  fortnight  afterward  his  brethren  read  the 
burial-service  over  him  on  a  calm,  cloudless  evening  at 
sea.  Before  he  was  committed  to  the  deep,  his  little 
pocket  Bible,  which  had  been  a  present  from  his  wife, 
was,  in  accordance  with  his  dying  wishes,  placed  open 
on  his  breast,  so  that  the  inscription,  "  To  my  dear  Hus- 
band," might  rest  over  his  heart. 

His  unhappy  wife  still  lives.  When  the  farewell  lines 
of  her  husband's  writing  reached  her  she  was  incapable 
of  comprehending  them.  The  mental  prostration  which 


318  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

had  followed  the  parting  scene  was  soon  complicated  by 
physical  suffering — by  fever  on  the  brain.  To  the  sur- 
prise of  all  who  attended  her,  she  lived  through  the  shock, 
recovering  with  the  complete  loss  of  one  faculty,  which, 
in  her  situation,  poor  thing !  was  a  mercy  and  a  gain  to 
her — the  faculty  of  memory.  From  that  time  to  this 
she  has  never  had  the  slightest  gleam  of  recollection  of 
any  thing  that  happened  before  her  illness.  In  her  hap- 
py oblivion,  the  veriest  trifles  are  as  new  and  as  interest- 
ing to  her  as  if  she  was  begining  her  existence  again. 
Under  the  tender  care  of  the  friends  who  now  protect 
her,  she  lives  contentedly  the  life  of  a  child.  When  her 
last  hour  comes,  may  she  die  with  nothing  on  her  mem- 
ory but  the  recollection  of  their  kindness ! 


THE  EIGHTH  DAY. 

THE  wind  that  I  saw  in  the  8ky  yesterday  has  come. 
It  sweeps  down  our  little  valley  in  angry  howling  gusts, 
and  drives  the  heavy  showers  before  it  in  great  sheets 
of  spray. 

There  are  some  people  who  find  a  strangely  exciting 
effect  produced  on  their  spirits  by  the  noise,  and  rush, 
and  tumult  of  the  elements  on  a  stormy  day.  It  has  nev- 
er been  so  with  me,  and  it  is  less  so  than  ever  now.  I 
can  hardly  bear  to  think  of  my  son  at  sea  in  such  a  tem- 
pest as  this.  While  I  can  still  get  no  news  of  his  ship, 
morbid  fancies  beset  me  which  I  vainly  try  to  shake  off. 
I  see  the  trees  through  my  window  bending  before  the 
wind.  Are  the  masts  of  the  good  ship  bending  like  them 
at  this  moment?  I  hear  the  wash  of  the  driving  rain. 
Is  he  hearing  the  thunder  of  the  raging  waves?  If  he 
had  only  come  back  last  night ! — it  is  vain  to  dwell  on 
it,  but  the  thought  will  haunt  me — if  he  had  only  come 
back  last  night ! 

I  tried  to  speak  cautiously  about  him  again  to  Jessie, 
as  Owen  had  advised  me ;  but  I  am  so  old  and  feeble 
now  that  this  ill-omened  storm  has  upset  me,  and  I  could 
not  feel  sure  enough  of  my  own  self-control  to  venture  on 
matching  myself  to-day  against  a  light-hearted,  lively 
girl,  with  all  her  wits  about  her.  It  is  so  important  that 
I  should  not  betray  George — it  would  be  so  inexcusable 
on  my  part  if  his  interests  suffered,  even  accidentally,  in 
my  hands. 

This  was  a  trying  day  for  our  guest.  Her  few  trifling 
in-door  resources  had,  as  I  could  see,  begun  to  lose  their 


320  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

attractions  for  her  at  last.  If  we  were  not  now  getting 
to  the  end  of  the  stories,  and  to  the  end,  therefore,  of  the 
Ten  Days  also,  our  chance  of  keeping  her  much  longer 
at  the  Glen  Tower  would  be  a  very  poor  one. 

It  was,  I  think,  a  great  relief  for  us  all  to  be  summoned 
together  this  evening  for  a  definite  purpose.  The  wind 
had  fallen  a  little  as  it  got  on  toward  dusk.  To  hear  it 
growing  gradually  fainter  and  fainter  in  the  Valley  below 
added  immeasurably  to  the  comforting  influence  of  the 
blazing  h're  and  the  cheerful  lights  when  the  shutters  were 
closed  for  the  night. 

The  number  drawn  happened  to  be  the  last  of  the  series 
— Ten — and  the  last  also  of  the  stories  which  I  had  writ- 
ten. There  were  now  but  two  numbers  left  in  the  bowl. 
Owen  and  Morgan  had  each  one  reading  more  to  accom- 
plish before  our  guest's  stay  came  to  an  end,  and  the 
manuscripts  in  the  Purple  Volume  were  all  exhausted. 

"  This  new  story  of  mine,"  I  said,  "  is  not,  like  the  story 
I  last  read,  a  narrative  of  adventures  happening  to  my- 
self, but  of  adventui-es  that  happened  to  a  lady  of  my  ac- 
quaintance. I  was  brought  into  contact,  in  the  first  in- 
stance, with  one  of  her  male  relatives,  and,  in  the  second 
instance,  with  the  lady  herself,  by  certain  professional 
circumstances  which  I  need  not  particularly  describe. 
They  involved  a  dry  question  of  wills  and  title-deeds  in 
no  way  connected  with  this  story,  but  sufficiently  impor- 
tant to  interest  me  as  a  lawTyer.  The  case  came  to  trial 
at  the  Assizes  on  my  circuit,  and  I  won  it  in  the  face  of 
some  very  strong  points,  very  well  put  on  the  other  side. 
I  was  in  poor  health  at  the  time,  and  my  exertions  so 
completely  knocked  me  up  that  I  was  confined  to  bed  in 
my  lodgings  for  a  week  or  more — " 

"  And  the  grateful  lady  came  and  nursed  you,  I  sup- 
pose," said  the  Queen  of  Hearts,  in  her  smart,  oif-hand 
way. 


THE    QIKKX    OF    HEARTS.  321 

"  The  grateful  lady  did  something  much  more  natural 
in  her  position,  and  much  more  useful  in  mine,"  I  answer- 
ed— "  she  sent  her  servant  to  attend  on  me.  He  was  an 
elderly  man,  who  had  been  in  her  service  since  the  time 
of  her  first  marriage,  and  he  was  also  one  of  the  most 
sensible  and  well-informed  persons  whom  I  have  ever 
met  with  in  his  station  of  life.  From  hints  which  he 
dropped  while  he  was  at  my  bedside,  I  discovered  for  the 
first  time  that  his  mistress  had  been  unfortunate  in  her 
second  marriage,  and  that  the  troubles  of  that  period  of 
her  life  had  ended  in  one  of  the  most  singular  events  which 
had  happened  in  that  part  of  England  for  many  a  long 
day  past.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that,  before  I  al- 
lowed the  man  to  enter  into  any  particulars,  I  stipulated 
that  he  should  obtain  his  mistress's  leave  to  communicate 
what  he  knew.  Having  gained  this,  and  having  farther 
surprised  me  by  mentioning  that  he  had  been  himself  con- 
nected with  all  the  circumstances,  he  told  me  the  whole 
story  in  the  fullest  detail.  I  have  now  tried  to  reproduce 
it  as  nearly  as  I  could  in  his  own  language.  Imagine, 
therefore,  that  I  am  just  languidly  recovering  in  bed,  and 
that  a  respectable  elderly  man,  in  quiet  black  costume, 
is  sitting  at  my  pillow  and  speaking  to  me  in  these 
terms — " 

Thus  ending  my  little  preface,  I  opened  the  manuscript 
and  began  my  last  story. 


322  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 


BKOTHER  GRIFFITH'S  STORY 

OF 

A  PLOT  IN  PRIVATE  LIFE, 

CHAPTER  I. 

THE  first  place  I  got  when  I  began  going  out  to  serv- 
ice was  not  a  very  profitable  one.  I  certainly  gained  the 
advantage  of  learning  my  business  thoroughly,  but  I  nev- 
er had  my  due  in  the  matter  of  wages.  My  master  wae 
made  a  bankrupt,  and  his  servants  suffered  with  the  rest 
of  his  creditors. 

My  second  situation,  however,  amply  compensated  me 
for  my  want  of  luck  in  the  first.  I  had  the  good  fortune 
to  enter  the  service  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  iSTorcross.  My  mas- 
ter was  a  very  rich  gentleman.  He  had  the  Darrock 
house  and  lands  in  Cumberland,  an  estate  also  in  York- 
shire, and  a  very  large  property  in  Jamaica,  which  pro- 
duced, at  that  time  and  for  some  years  afterward,  a  great 
income.  Out  in  the  West  Indies  he  met  with  a  pretty 
young  lady,  a  governess  in  an  English  family,  and,  taking 
a  violent  fancy  to  her,  married  her,  though  she  was  a 
good  five-and-twenty  years  younger  than  himself.  After 
the  wedding  they  came  to  England,  and  it  was  at  this 
time  that  I  wras  lucky  enough  to  be  engaged  by  them  as 
a  servant. 

I  lived  with  my  new  master  and  mistress  three  years. 
They  had  no  children.  At  the  end  of  that  period  Mr. 
Norcross  died.  He  was  sharp  enough  to  foresee  that 
his  young  widow  would  marry  again,  and  he  bequeathed 


THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

his  property  so  that  it  all  went  to  Mrs.  Norcross  first, 
and  then  to  any  children  she  might  have  by  a  second 
marriage,  and,  ihiling  that,  to  relations  and  friends  of  his 
own.  I  did  not  suffer  by  my  master's  death,  for  his 
widow  kept  me  in  her  service.  I  had  attended  on  Mr. 
Norcross  all  through  his  last  illness,  and  had  made  my- 
self useful  enough  to  win  my  mistress's  favor  and  grati- 
tude. Besides  me  she  also  retained  her  maid  in  her 
service — a  quadroon  woman  named  Josephine,  whom  she 
brought  with  her  from  the  West  Indies.  Even  at  that 
time  I  disliked  the  half-breed's  wheedling  manners,  and 
her  cruel,  tawny  face,  and  wondered  how  my  mistress 
could  be  so  fond  of  her  as  she  was.  Time  showed  that 
I  was  right  in  distrusting  this  woman.  I  shall  have 
much  more  to  say  about  her  when  I  get  farther  advanced 
with  my  story. 

Meanwhile  I  have  next  to  relate  that  my  mistress 
broke  up  the  rest  of  her  establishment,  and,  taking  me 
and  the  lady's  maid  with  her,  went-  to  travel  on  the  Con- 
tinent. 

Among  other  wonderful  places  we  visited  Paris,  Ge- 
noa, Venice,  Florence,  Rome,  and  Naples,  staying  in  some 
of  those  cities  for  months  together.  The  fame  of  my 
mistress's  riches  followed  her  wherever  she  went ;  and 
there  were  plenty  of  gentlemen,  foreigners  as  well  as  En- 
glishmen, wrho  were  anxious  enough  to  get  into  her  good 
graces  and  to  prevail  on  her  to  marry  them.  Nobody 
succeeded,  however,  in  producing  any  very  strong  or 
lasting  impression  on  her ;  and  when  we  came  back  to 
England,  after  more  than  two  years  of  absence,  Mrs. 
Norcross  was  still  a  widow,  and  showed  no  signs  of 
wanting  to  change  her  condition. 

We  went  to  the  house  on  the  Yorkshire  estate  first ; 
but  my  mistress  did  not  fancy  some  of  the  company 
round  about,  so  we  moved  again  to  Darrock  Hall,  and 


324  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

made  excursions  from  time  to  time  in  the  lake  district, 
some  miles  off.  On  one  of  these  trips  Mrs.  Xorcross  met 
with  some  old  friends,  who  introduced  her  to  a  gentle- 
man of  their  party  bearing  the  very  common  and  very 
uninteresting  name  of  Mr.  James  Smith. 

He  was  a  tall,  fine  young  man  enough,  with  black  hair, 
which  grew  very  long,  and  the  biggest,  bushiest  pair  of 
black  whiskers  I  ever  saw.  Altogether  he  had  a  rakish, 
unsettled  look,  and  a  bounceable  way  of  talking  which 
made  him  the  prominent  person  in  company.  He  was 
poor  enough  himself,  as  I  heard  from  his  servant,  but 
well  connected — a  gentleman  by  birth  and  education, 
though  his  manners  were  so  free.  What  my  mistress 
sawr  to  like  in  him  I  don't  know ;  but  when  she  asked 
her  friends  to  stay  with  her  at  Darrock,  she  included 
Mr.  James  Smith  in  the  invitation.  We  had  a  fine,  gay, 
noisy  time  of  it  at  the  Hall,  the  strange  gentleman,  in 
particular,  making  himself  as  much  at  home  as  if  the 
place  belonged  to  him.  I  was  surprised  at  Mrs.  Nor- 
cross  putting  up  with  him  as  she  did,  but  I  was  fairly 
thunderstruck  some  months  afterward  when  I  heard  thiit 
she  and  her  free-and-easy  visitor  were  actually  going  to 
be  married  !  She  had  refused  offers  by  dozens  abroad, 
from  higher,  and  richer,  and  better-behaved  men.  It 
seemed  next  to  impossible  that  she  could  seriously  think 
of  throwing  herself  away  upon  such  a  hare-brained,  head- 
long, penniless  young  gentleman  as  Mr.  James  Smith. 

Married,  nevertheless,  they  were,  in  due  course  of  time ; 
and,  after  spending  the  honeymoon  abroad,  they  came 
back  to  Darrock  Hall. 

I  soon  found  that  my  new  master  had  a  very  variable 
temper.  There  were  some  days  when  he  was  as  easy, 
and  familiar,  and  pleasant  with  his  servants  as  any  gen- 
tleman need  be.  At  other  times  some  devil  within  him 
seemed  «to  get  possession  of  his  whole  nature.  He  flew 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  325 

into  violent  passions,  and  took  wrong  ideas  into  his  head, 
\vhich  no  reasoning  or  remonstrance  could  remove.  It 
rather  amazed  me,  considering  how  gay  he  was  in  his 
tastes,  and  how  restless  his  habits  were,  that  he  should 
consent  to  live  at  such  a  quiet,  dull  place  as  Darrock. 
The  reason  for  this,  however,  soon  came  out.  Mr.  James 
Smith  was  not  much  of  a  sportsman ;  he  cared  nothing 
for  in-door  amusements,  such  as  reading,  music,  and  so 
forth ;  and  he  hud  no  ambition  for  representing  the  coun- 
ty in  Parliament.  The  one  pursuit  that  he  was  really 
fond  of  was  yachting.  Darrock  was  within  sixteen  miles 
of  a  sea-port  town,  with  an  excellent  harbor,  and  to  this 
accident  of  position  the  Hall  was  entirely  indebted  for 
recommending  itself  as  a  place  of  residence  to  Mr.  James 
Smith. 

He  had  such  an  untiring  enjoyment  and  delight  in 
cruising  about  at  sea,  and  all  his  ideas  of  pleasure  seem- 
ed to  be  so  closely  connected  with  his  remembrance  of 
the  sailing  trips  he  had  taken  on  board  different  yachts 
belonging  to  his  friends,  that  I  verily  believe  his  chief 
object  in  marrying  my  mistress  was  to  get  the  command 
of  money  enough  to  keep  a  vessel  for  himself.  Be  that 
as  it  may,  it  is.  certain  that  he  prevailed  on  her,  some 
time  after  their  marriage,  to  make  him  a  present  of  a  fine 
schooner  yacht,  which  was  brought  round  from  Cowes 
to  our  coast-town,  and  kept  always  waiting  ready  for 
him  in  the  harbor. 

His  wife  required  some  little  persuasion  before  she 
could  make  up  her  mind  to  let  him  have  the  vessel.  She 
suffered  so  much  from  sea-sickness  that  pleasure-sailing 
was  out  of  the  question  for  her ;  and,  being  very  fond  of 
her  husband,  she  was  naturally  unwilling  that  he  should 
engage  in  an  amusement  which  took  him  away  from  her. 
However,  Mr.  James  Smith  used  his  influence  over  her 
cleverly,  promising  that  he  would  never  go  away  with- 


326  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

out  first  asking  her  leave,  and  engaging  that  his  terms 
of  absence  at  sea  should  never  last  tor  more  than  a  week 
or  ten  days  at  a  time.  Accordingly,  my  mistress,  who 
was  the  kindest  and  most  unselfish  woman  in  the  world, 
put  her  own  feelings  aside,  and  made  her  husband  happy 
in  the  possession  of  a  vessel  of  his  own. 

While  my  master  was  away  cruising  my  mistress  had 
a  dull  time  of  it  at  the  Hall.  The  few  gentlefolks  there 
were  in  our  part  of  the  county  lived  at  a  distance,  and 
could  only  come  to  Darrock  when  they  were  asked  to 
stay  there  for  some  days  together.  As  for  the  village 
near  us,  there  was  but  one  person  living  in  it  whom  my 
mistress  could  think  of  asking  to  the  Hall,  and  that  per- 
son was  the  clergyman  who  did  duty  at  the  church. 

This  gentleman's  name  was  Mr.  Meeke.  lie  was  a 
single  man,  very  young,  and  very  lonely  in  his  position. 
He  had  a  mild,  melancholy,  pasty-looking  face,  and  was 
as  shy  and  soft-spoken  as  a  little  girl — altogether,  what 
one  may  call,  without  being  unjust  or  severe,  a  poor, 
weak  creature,  and,  out  of  all  sight,  the  very  worst 
preacher  I  ever  sat  under  in  my  life.  The  one  thing  he 
did,  which,  as  I  heard,  he  could  really  do  well,  was  play- 
ing on  the  fiddle.  He  was  uncommonly  fond  of  music — 
so  much  so  that  he  often  took  his  instrument  out  with 
him  when  he  went  for  a  walk.  This  taste  of  his  was  his 
great  recommendation  to  my  mistress,  who  was  a  won- 
derfully fine  player  on  the  piano,  and  who  was  delighted 
to  get  such  a  performer  as  Mr.  Meeke  to  play  duets  with 
her.  Besides  liking  his  society  for  this  reason,  she  felt 
for  him  in  his  lonely  position  ;  naturally  enough,  I  think, 
considering  how  often  she  was  left  in  solitude  herself. 
Mr.  Meeke,  on  his  side,  when  he  got  over  his  first  shy- 
ness, was  only  too  glad  to  leave  his  lonesome  little  par- 
sonage for  the  fine  music-room  at  the  Hall,  and  for  the 
company  of  a  handsome,  kind-hearted  lady,  who  madu 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  327 

much  of  him,  and  admired  his  fiddle-playing  with  all  her 
heart.  Thus  it  happened  that,  whenever  my  master  was 
away  at  sea,  my  mistress  and  Mr.  Meeke  were  always 
together,  playing  duets  as  if  they  had  their  living  to  get 
by  it.  A  more  harmless  connection  than  the  connection 
between  those  two  never  existed  in  this  world ;  and  yet, 
innocent  as  it  was,  it  turned  out  to  be  the  first  cause  of 
all  the  misfortunes  that  afterward  happened. 

My  master's  treatment  of  Mr.  Meeke  was,  from  the 
first,  the  very  opposite  of  my  mistress's.  The  restless, 
rackety,  bouriceable  Mr.  James  Smith  felt  a  contempt  for 
the  weak,  womanish,  fiddling  little  parson,  and,  what  was 
more,  did  not  care  to  conceal  it.  For  this  reason,  Mr. 
Meeke  (who  was  dreadfully  frightened  by  my  master's 
violent  language  and  rough  ways)  very  seldom  visited 
at  the  Hall  except  when  my  mistress  was  alone  there. 
Meaning  no  wrong,  and  therefore  stooping  to  no  conceal- 
ment, she  never  thought  of  taking  any  measures  to  keep 
Mr.  Meeke  out  of  the  way  when  he  happened  to  be  with 
her  at  the  time  of  her  husband's  coming  home,  whether 
it  was  only  from  a  riding  excursion  in  the  neighborhood 
or  from  a  cruise  in  the  schooner.  In  this  way  it  so  turn- 
ed out  that  whenever  my  master  came  home,  after  a  long 
or  short  absence,  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten  he  found  the 
parson  at  the  Hall. 

At  first  he  used  to  laugh  at  this  circumstance,  and  to 
amuse  himself  with  some  coarse  jokes  at  the  expense  of 
his  wife  and  her  companion.  But,  after  a  while,  his 
variable  temper  changed,  as  usual.  He  grew  sulky, 
rude,  angry,  and,  at  last,  downright  jealous  of  Mr.  Meeke. 
Though  too  proud  to  confess  it  in  so  many  words,  he 
still  showed  the  state  of  his  mind  clearly  enough  to  my 
mistress  to  excite  her  indignation.  She  was  a  woman 
who  could  be  led  any  where  by  any  one  for  whom  she 
had  a  regard,  but  there  was  a  firm  spirit  within  her  that 


328  THE    QUEEX    OP    HEARTS. 

rose  at  the  slightest  show  of  injustice  or  oppression,  and 
that  resented  tyrannical  usage  of  any  sort  perhaps  a  little 
too  warmly.  The  bare  suspicion  that  her  husband  could 
feel  any  distrust  of  her  set  her  all  in  a  flame,  and  she 
took  the  most  unfortunate,  and  yet,  at  the  same  time, 
the  most  natural  way  for  a  woman,  of  resenting  it.  The 
ruder  her  husband  was  to  Mr.  Meeke,  the  more  kindly 
she  behaved  to  him.  This  led  to  serious  disputes  and 
dissensions,  and  thence,  in  time,  to  a  violent  quarrel.  I 
could  not  avoid  hearing  the  last  part  of  the  altercation 
between  them,  for  it  took  place  in  the  garden-walk,  out- 
side 4he  dining-room  window,  while  I  was  occupied  in 
laying  the  table  for  lunch. 

Without  repeating  their  words — which  I  have  no  right 
to  do,  having  heard  by  accident  what  I  had  no  business 
to  hear — I  may  say  generally,  to  show  how  serious  the 
quarrel  was,  that  my  mistress  charged  my  master  with 
having  married  from  mercenary  motives,  with  keeping 
out  of  her  company  as  much  as  he  could,  and  with  insult- 
ing her  by  a  suspicion  which  it  would  be  hard  ever  to 
forgive,  and  impossible  ever  to  forget.  He  replied  by 
violent  language  directed  against  herself,  and  by  com- 
manding her  never  to  open  the  doors  again  to  Mr.  Meeke ; 
she,  on  her  side,  declaring  that  she  would  never  consent 
to  insult  a  clergyman  and  a  gentleman  in  order  to  satisfy 
the  whim  of  a  tyrannical  husband.  Upon  that  he  called 
out,  with  a  great  oath,  to  have  his  horse  saddled  directly, 
declaring  that  he  would  not  stop  another  instant  under 
the  same  roof  with  a  woman  who  had  set  him  at  defi- 
ance, and  warning  his  wife  that  he  would  come  back,  if 
Mr.  Meeke  entered  the  house  again,  and  horsewhip  him, 
in  spite  of  his  black  coat,  all  through  the  village. 

With  those  words  he  left  her,  and  rode  away  to  the 
sea-port  where  his  yacht  was  lying.  My  mistress  kept 
up  her  spirit  till  he  was  out  of  sight,  and  then  burst  into 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  329 

a  dreadful  screaming  passion  of  tears,  which  ended  by 
leaving  her  so  weak  that  she  had  to  be  carried  to  her 
bed  like  a  woman  who  was  at  the  point  of  death. 

The  same  evening  my  master's  horse  was  ridden  back 
by  a  messenger,  who  brought  a  scrap  of  note-paper  with 
him  addressed  to  me.  It  only  contained  these  lines: 

"  Pack  up  my  clothes  and  deliver  them  immediately  to 
the  bearer.  You  may  tell  your  mistress  that  I  sail  to- 
night at  eleven  o'clock  for  a  cruise  to  Sweden.  For- 
ward my  letters  to  the  post-office,  Stockholm." 

I  obeyed  the  orders  given  to  me  except  that  relating 
to  my  mistress.  The  doctor  had  been  sent  for,  and  was 
still  in  the  house.  I  consulted  him  upon  the  propriety 
of  my  delivering  the  message.  He  positively  forbade 
me  to  do  so  that  night,  and  told  me  to  give  him  the  slip 
of  paper,  and  leave  it  to  his  discretion  to  show  it  to  her 
or  not  the  next  morning. 

The  messenger  had  hardly  been  gone  an  hour  when 
Mr.  Meeke's  housekeeper  came  to  the  Hall  with  a  roll  of 
music  for  my  mistress.  I  told  the  Avoman  of  my  mas- 
ter's sudden  departure,  and  of  the  doctor  being  in  the 
house.  This  news  brought  Mr.  Meeke  himself  to  the 
Hall  in  a  great  flutter. 

I  felt  so  angry  with  him  for  being  the  cause — innocent 
as  he  might  be — of  the  shocking  scene  which  had  taken 
place,  that  I  exceeded  the  bounds  of  my  duty,  and  told 
him  the  whole  truth.  The  poor,  weak,  wavering,  child- 
ish creature  flushed  up  red  in  the  face,  then  turned  as 
pale  as  ashes,  and  dropped  into  one  of  the  hall  chairs 
crying — literally  crying  fit  to  break  his  heart.  "  Oh, 
William,"  says  he,  wringing  his  little  frail,  trembling 
white  hands  as  helpless  as  a  baby,  "  oh,  William,  what 
am  I  to  do  ?" 

"  As  you  ask  me  that  question,  sir,"  says  I,  "  you  will 
excuse  me,  I  hope,  if,  being  a  servant,  I  plainly  speak  my 


330  THE    QUEEN"    OF    HEARTS. 

mind  notwithstanding.  I  know  my  station  well  enough 
to  be  aware  that,  strictly  speaking,  I  have  done  wrong, 
and  far  exceeded  my  duty,  in  telling  you  as  much  as  I 
have  told  you  already ;  but  I  would  go  through  lire  and 
water,  sir,"  says  I,  feeling  my  own  eyes  getting  moist, 
"  for  my  mistress's  sake.  She  has  no  relation  here  who 
can  speak  to  you ;  and  it  is  even  better  that  a  servant 
like  me  should  risk  being  guilty  of  an  impertinence,  than 
that  dreadful  and  lasting  mischief  should  arise  from  the 
right  remedy  not  being  applied  at  the  right  time.  This 
is  Avhat  I  should  do,  sir,  in  your  place.  Saving  your 
presence,  I  should  leave  off  crying,  and  go  back  home 
and  write  to  Mr.  James  Smith,  saying  that  I  would  not, 
as  a  clergyman,  give  him  railing  for  railing,  but  would 
prove  how  unworthily  he  had  suspected  me  by  ceasing 
to  visit  at  the  Hall  from  this  time  forth,  rather  than  be  a 
cause  of  dissension  between  man  and  wife.  If  you  will 
put  that  into  proper  language,  sir,  and  will  have  the  letter 
ready  for  me  in  half  an  hour's  time,  I  will  call  for  it  on  the 
fastest  horse  in  our  stables,  and,  at  my  own  risk,  will 
give  it  to  my  master  before  he  sails  to-night.  I  have 
nothing  more  to  say,  sir,  except  to  ask  your  pardon  for 
forgetting  my  proper  place,  and  for  making  bold  to  speak 
on  a  very  serious  matter  as  equal  to  equal,  and  as  man 
to  man." 

To  do  Mr.  Meeke  justice,  he  had  a  heart,  though  it  was 
a  very  small  one.  He  shook  hands  with  me,  and  said  he 
accepted  my  advice  as  the  advice  of  a  friend,  and  so  went 
back  to  his  parsonage  to  write  the  letter.  In  half  an 
hour  I  called  for  it  on  horseback,  but  it  was  not  ready 
for  me.  Mr.  Meeke  was  ridiculously  nice  about  how  he 
should  express  himself  when  he  got  a  pen  into  his  hand. 
I  found  him  with  his  desk  littered  with  rough  copies,  in 
a  perfect  agony  about  how  to  turn  his  phrases  delicately 
enough  in  referring  to  my  mistress.  Every  minute  be- 


THE    Qt'EEtt    OF    HEARTS.  331 

ing  precious,  I  hurried  him  as  much  as  I  could,  without 
standing  on  any  ceremony.  It  took  half  an  hour  more, 
with  all  my  efforts,  before  he  could  make  up  his  mind 
that  the  letter  would  do.  I  started  off  with  it  at  a  gal- 
lop, and  never  drew  rein  till  I  got  to  the  sea-port  town. 
The  harbor-clock  chimed  the  quarter  past  eleven  as  I 
rode  by  it,  and  when  I  got  down  to  the  jetty  there  was 
no  yacht  to  be  seen.  She  had  been  cast  off  from  her 
moorings  ten  minutes  before  eleven,  and  as  the  clock 
struck  she  had  sailed  out  of  the  harbor.  I  would  have 
followed  in  a  boat,  but  it  was  a  fine  starlight  night,  with 
a  fresh  wind  blowing,  and  the  sailors  on  the  pier  laughed 
at  me  when  I  spoke  of  rowing  after  a  schooner  yacht 
wrhich  had  got  a  quarter  of  an  hour's  start  of  us,  with  the 
wind  abeam  and  the  tide  in  her  favor. 

I  rode  back  with  a  heavy  heart.  All  I  could  do  now 
was  to  send  the  letter  to  the  post-office,  Stockholm. 

The  next  day  the  doctor  showed  my  mistress  the  scrap 
of  paper  with  the  message  on  it  from  my  master,  and  an 
hour  or  two  after  that,  a  letter  was  sent  to  her  in  Mr. 
Meeke's  handwriting,  explaining  the  reason  why  she 
must  not  expect  to  see  him  at  the  Hall,  and  referring  to 
me  in  terms  of  high  praise  as  a  sensible  and  faithful  man 
who  had  spoken  the  right  word  at  the  right  time.  I  am 
able  to  repeat  the  substance  of  the  letter,  because  I  heard 
all  about  it  from  my  mistress,  under  very  unpleasant  cir- 
cumstances so  far  as  I  was  concerned. 

The  news  of  my  master's  departure  did  not  affect  her 
as  the  doctor  had  supposed  it  would.  Instead  of  dis- 
tressing her,  it  roused  her  spirit  and  made  her  angry; 
her  pride,  as  I  imagine,  being  wounded  by  the  contempt- 
uous manner  in  which  her  husband  had  notified  his  inten- 
tion of  sailing  to  Sweden  at  the  end  of  a  message  to  a 
servant  about  packing  his  clothes.  Finding  her  in  that 

temper  of  mind,  the  letter  from  Mr.  Meeke  only  irritated 

15 


332  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

her  the  more.  She  insisted  on  getting  up,  and  as  soon 
as  she  was  dressed  and  down  stairs,  she  vented  her  vio- 
lent humor  on  me,  reproaching  me  for  impertinent  inter- 
ference in  the  aifairs  of  my  betters,  and  declaring  that 
she  had  almost  made  up  her  mind  to  turn  me  out  of  my 
place  for  it.  I  did  not  defend  myself,  because  I  respect- 
ed her  sorrows  and  the  irritation  that  came  from  them  ; 
also,  because  I  knew  the  natural  kindness  of  her  nature 
well  enough  to  be  assured  that  she  would  make  amends 
to  me  for  her  harshness  the  moment  her  mind  was  com- 
posed again.  The  result  showed  that  I  was  right.  That 
same  evening  she  sent  for  me,  and  begged  me  to  forgive 
and  forget  the  hasty  words  she  had  spoken  in  the  mom- 
ing  with  a  grace  and  sweetness  that  would  have  Avon  the 
heart  of  any  man  who  listened  to  her. 

Weeks  passed  after  this,  till  it  was  more  than  a  month 
since  the  day  of  my  master's  departure,  and  no  letter  in 
his  handwriting  came  to  Darrock  Hall. 

My  mistress,  taking  this  treatment  more  angrily  than 
sorrowfully,  went  to  London  to  consult  her  nearest  rela- 
tions, who  lived  there.  On  leaving  home  she  stopped 
the  carriage  at  the  parsonage,  and  went  in  (as  I  thought, 
rather  defiantly)  to  say  good-by  to  Mr.  Meeke.  She  had 
answered  his  letter,  and  received  others  from  him,  and 
had  answered  them  likewise.  She  had  also,  of  course, 
seen  him  every  Sunday  at  church,  and  had  always  stop- 
ped to  speak  to  him  after  the  service ;  but  this  was  the 
first  occasion  on  which  she  had  visited  him  at  his  house. 
As  the  carriage  stopped,  the  little  parson  came  out,  in 
great  hurry  and  agitation,  to  meet  her  at  the  garden  gate. 

"  Don't  look  alarmed,  Mr.  Meeke,"  says  my  mistress, 
getting  out.  "Though  you  have  engaged  not  to  come 
near  the  Hall,  I  have  made  no  promise  to  keep  away 
from  the  parsonage."  With  those  words  she  went  into 
the  house. 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  333 

The  quadroon  maid,  Josephine,  was  sitting  with  me  in 
the  rumble  of  the  carriage,  and  I  saw  a  smile  on  her 
tawny  face  as  the  parson  and  his  visitor  went  into  the 
house  together.  Harmless  as  Mr.  Meeke  was,  and  inno- 
cent of  all  wrong  as  I  knew  my  mistress  to  be,  I  regret- 
ted that  she  should  be  so  rash  as  to  despise  appearances, 
considering  the  situation  she  was  placed  in.  She  had  al- 
ready exposed  herself  to  be  thought  of  disrespectfully  by 
her  own  maid,  and  it  was  hard  to  say  what  worse  conse- 
quences might  not  happen  after  that. 

Half  an  hour  later  we  were  away  on  our  journey.  My 
mistress  staid  in  London  two  months.  Throughout  all 
that  long  time  no  letter  from  my  master  was  forwarded 
to  her  from  the  country  house. 


CHAPTER  II. 

WHEN  the  two  months  had  passed  we  returned  to 
Darrock  Hall.  Nobody  there  had  received  any  news  in 
our  absence  of  the  whereabouts  of  my  master  and  his 
yacht. 

Six  more  weary  weeks  elapsed,  and  in  that  time  but 
one  event  happened  at  the  Hall  to  vary  the  dismal  mo- 
notony of  the  lives  we  now  led  in  the  solitary  place. 
One  morning  Josephine  came  down  after  dressing  my 
mistress  with  her  face  downright  livid  to  look  at,  except 
on  one  cheek,  where  there  was  a  mark  as  red  as  burning 
fire.  I  was  in  the  kitchen  at  the  time,  and  I  asked  what 
was  the  matter. 

"  The  matter !"  says  she,  in  her  shrill  voice  and  her 
half-foreign  English.  "  Use  your  own  eyes,  if  you  please, 
and  look  at  this  cheek  of  mine.  What !  have  you  lived 
so  long  a  time  with  your  mistress,  and  don't  you  know 
the  mark  of  her  hand  yet  ?" 


334  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

I  was  at  a  loss  to  understand  what  she  meant,  but  she 
soon  explained  herself.  My  mistress,  whose  temper  had 
been  sadly  altered  for  the  worse  by  the  trials  and  humil- 
iations she  had  gone  through,  had  got  up  that  morning- 
more  out  of  humor  than  usual,  and,  in  answer  to  her 
maid's  inquiry  as  to  how  she  had  passed  the  night,  had 
begun  talking  about  her  weary,  miserable  life  in  an  un- 
usually fretful  and  desperate  way.  Josephine,  in  trying 
to  cheer  her  spirits,  had  ventured,  most  improperly,  on 
making  a  light,  jesting  reference  to  Mr.  Meeke,  which  had 
so  enraged  my  mistress  that  she  turned  round  sharp  on 
the  half-breed,  and  gave  her — to  use  the  common  phrase 
— a  smart  box  on  the  ear.  Josephine  confessed  that,  the 
moment  after  she  had  done  this,  her  better  sense  appear- 
ed to  tell  her  that  she  had  taken  a  most  improper  way 
of  resenting  undue  familiarity.  She  had  immediately  ex- 
pressed her  regret  for  having  forgotten  herself,  and  had 
proved  the  sincerity  of  it  by  a  gift  of  half  a  dozen  cam- 
bric handkerchiefs,  presented  as  a  peace-offering  on  the 
spot.  After  that  I  thought  it  impossible  that  Josephine 
could  bear  any  malice  against  a  mistress  whom  she  had 
served  ever  since  she  had  been  a  girl,  and  I  said  as  much 
to  her  when  she  had  done  telling  me  what  had  happened 
up  stairs. 

"I !  Malice !"  cries  Miss  Josephine,  in  her  hard,  sharp, 
snappish  way.  "  And  why,  and  wherefore,  if  you  please  ? 
If  my  mistress  smacks  my  cheek  with  one  hand,  she  gives 
me  handkerchiefs  to  wipe  it  with  the  other.  My  good 
mistress,  my  kind  mistress,  my  pretty  mistress !  I,  the 
servant,  bear  malice  against  her,  the  mistress  !  Ah !  you 
bad  man,  even  to  think  of  such  a  thing !  Ah  !  fie,  fie ! 
I  am  quite  ashamed  of  you !" 

She  gave  me  one  look — the  wickedest  look  I  ever  saw, 
and  burst  out  laughing — the  harshest  laugh  I  ever  heard 
from  a  woman's  lips.  Turning  away  from  me  directly 


THE    QUEEN    OF    I1EAETS.  335 

after,  she  said  no  more,  and  never  referred  to  the  subject 
again  on  any  subsequent  occasion. 

From  that  time,  however,  I  noticed  an  alteration  in 
Miss  Josephine  ;  not  in  her  way  of  doing  her  work,  for 
she  was  just  as  sharp  and  careful  about  it  as  ever,  but  in 
her  manners  and  habits.  She  grew  amazingly  quiet,  and 
passed  almost  all  her  leisure  time  alone.  I  could  bring 
no  charge  against  her  which  authorized  me  to  speak  a 
word  of  warning ;  but,  for  all  that,  I  could  not  help  feel- 
ing that  if  I  had  been  in  my  mistress's  place  I  would  have 
followed  up  the  present  of  the  cambric  handkerchiefs  by 
paying  her  a  month's  wages  in  advance,  and  sending  her 
away  from  the  house  the  same  evening. 

With  the  exception  of  this  little  domestic  matter, 
which  appeared  trifling  enough  at  the  time,  but  which 
led  to  very  serious  consequences  afterward,  nothing  hap- 
pened at  all  out  of  the  ordinary  way  during  the  six 
weary  weeks  to  which  I  have  referred.  At  the  begin- 
ning of  the  seventh  week,  however,  an  event  occurred  at 
last. 

One  morning  the  postman  brought  a  letter  to  the  Hall 
addressed  to  my  mistress.  I  took  it  up  stairs,  and  look- 
ed at  the  direction  as  I  put  it  on  the  salver.  The  hand- 
writing was  not  my  master's ;  was  not,  as  it  appeared  to 
me,  the  handwriting  of  any  well-educated  person.  The 
outside  of  the  letter  was  also  very  dirty,  and  the  seal  a 
common  office -seal  of  the  usual  lattice -work  pattern. 
"  This  must  be  a  begging-letter,"  I  thought  to  myself  as 
I  entered  the  breakfast-room  and  advanced  with  it  to 
my  mistress. 

She  held  up  her  hand  before  she  opened  it  as  a  sign  to 
me  that  she  had  some  order  to  give,  and  that  I  was  not 
to  leave  the  room  till  I  had  received  it.  Then  she  broke 
the  seal  and  began  to  read  the  letter. 

Her  eyes  had  hardly  been  on  it  a  moment  before  her 


336  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

face  turned  as  pale  as  death,  and  the  paper  began  to 
tremble  in  her  fingers.  She*  read  on  to  the  end,  and  sud- 
denly turned  from  pale  to  scarlet,  started  out  of  her 
chair,  crumpled  the  letter  up  violently  in  her  hand,  and 
took  several  turns  backward  and  forward  in  the  room, 
without  seeming  to  notice  me  as  I  stood  by  the  door. 
"  You  villain !  you  villain !  you  villain !"  I  heard  her 
whisper  to  herself  many  times  over,  in  a  quick,  hissing, 
fierce  way.  Then  she  stopped,  and  said  on  a  sudden, 
"  Can  it  be  true  ?"  Then  she  looked  up,  and,  seeing  me 
standing  at  the  door,  started  as  if  I  had  been  a  stranger, 
changed  color  again,  and  told  me,  in  a  stifled  voice,  to 
leave  her  and  come  back  again  in  half  an  hour.  I  obey- 
ed, feeling  certain  that  she  must  have  received  some  very 
bad  news  of  her  husband,  and  wondering,  anxiously 
enough,  what  it  might  be. 

When  I  returned  to  the  breakfast-room  her  face  was 
as  much  discomposed  as  ever.  Without  speaking  a  word 
she  handed  me  two  sealed  letters :  one,  a  note  to  be  left 
for  Mr.  Meeke  at  the  parsonage ;  the  other,  a  letter 
marked  "Immediate,"  and  addressed  to  her  solicitor  in 
London,  who  was  also,  I  should  add,  her  nearest  living 
relative. 

I  left  one  of  these  letters  and  posted  the  other.  When 
I  came  back  I  heard  that  my  mistress  had  taken  to  her 
room.  She  remained  there  for  four  days,  keeping  her 
new  sorrow,  whatever  it  was,  strictly  to  herself.  On  the 
fifth  day  the  lawyer  from  London  arrived  at  the  Hall. 
My  mistress  went  down  to  him  in  the  library,  and  was 
shut  up  there  with  him  for  nearly  two  hours.  At  the 
end  of  that  time  the  bell  rang  for  me. 

"  Sit  down,  William,"  said  my  mistress,  when  I  came 
into  the  room.  "I  feel  such  entire  confidence  in  your 
fidelity  and  attachment  that  I  am  about,  with  the  full 
concurrence  of  this  gentleman,  who  is  my  nearest  rein- 


THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS.  337 

tive  and  my  legal  adviser,  to  place  a  very  serious  secret 
in  your  keeping,  and  to  employ  your  services  on  a  mat- 
ter which  is  as  important  to  me  as  a  matter  of  life  and 
death." 

Her  poor  eyes  were  very  red,  and  her  lips  quivered  as 
she  spoke  to  me.  I  was  so  startled  by  what  she  had 
said  that  I  hardly  knew  which  chair  to  sit  in.  She 
pointed  to  one  placed  near  herself  at  the  table,  and 
seemed  about  to  speak  to  me  again,  when  the  lawyer  in- 
terfered. 

"  Let  me  entreat  you,"  he  said,  "  not  to  agitate  your- 
self unnecessarily.  I  will  put  this  person  in  possession 
of  the  facts,  and,  if  I  omit  any  thing,  you  shall  stop  me 
and  set  me  right." 

My  mistress  leaned  back  in  her  chair  and  covered  her 
face  with  her  handkerchief.  The  lawyer  waited  a  mo- 
ment, and  then  addressed  himself  to  me. 

"  You  are  already  aware,"  he  said,  "  of  the  circum- 
stances under  which  your  master  left  this  house,  and 
you  also  know,  I  have  no  doubt,  that  no  direct  news  of 
him  has  reached  your  mistress  up  to  this  time  ?" 

I  bowed  to  him,  and  said  I  knew  of  the  circumstances 
so  far. 

"  Do  you  remember,"  he  went  on,  "  taking  a  letter  to 
your  mistress  five  days  ago  ?" 

"  Yes,  sir,"  I  replied ;  "  a  letter  which  seemed  to  dis- 
tress and  alarm  her  very  seriously." 

"  I  will  read  you  that  letter  before  we  say  any  more," 
continued  the  lawyer.  "  I  warn  you  beforehand  that  it 
contains  a  terrible  charge  against  your  master,  which, 
however,  is  not  attested  by  the  writer's  signature.  I 
have  already  told  your  mistress  that  she  must  not  attach 
too  much  importance  to  an  anonymous  letter;  and  I 
now  tell  you  the  same  thing." 

Saying  that,  he  took  up  a  letter  from  the  table  and 


338  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

read  it  aloud.  I  had  a  copy  of  it  given  to  me  afterward, 
which  I  looked  at  often  enough  to  fix  the  contents  of  the 
letter  in  my  memory.  I  can  now  repeat  them,  I  think, 
word  for  word. 

MADAM, — I  can  not  reconcile  it  to  my  conscience  to 
leave  you  in  total  ignorance  of  your  husband's  atrocious 
conduct  toward  you.  If  you  have  ever  been  disposed 
to  regret  his  absence,  do  so  no  longer.  Hope  and  pray, 
rather,  that  you  and  he  may  never  meet  face  to  face 
again  in  this  world.  I  write  in  great  haste  and  in  great 
fear  of  being  observed.  Time  fails  me  to  prepare  you  as 
you  ought  to  be  prepared  for  what  I  have  now  to  dis- 
close. I  must  tell  you  plainly,  with  much  respect  for 
you  and  sorrow  for  your  misfortune,  that  your  husband 
has  married  another  icife.  I  saw  the  ceremony  per- 
formed, unknown  to  him.  If  I  could  not  have  spoken 
of  this  infamous  act  as  an  eye-witness,  I  would  not  have 
spoken  of  it  at  all. 

"  I  dare  not  acknowledge  who  I  am,  for  I  believe  Mr. 
James  Smith  would  stick  at  no  crime  to  revenge  himself 
on  me  if  he  ever  came  to  a  knowledge  of  the  step  I  am 
now  taking,  and  of  the  means  by  which  I  got  my  infor- 
mation ;  neither  have  I  time  to  enter  into  particulars.  I 
simply  warn  you  of  what  has  happened,  and  leave  you  to 
act  on  that  warning  as  you  please.  You  may  disbelieve 
this  letter,  because  it  is  not  signed  by  any  name.  In 
that  case,  if  Mr.  James  Smith  should  ever  venture  into 
your  presence,  I  recommend  you  to  ask  him  suddenly 
what  he  has  done  with  his  neic  wife,  and  to  see  if  his 
countenance  does  not  immediately  testify  that  the  truth 
has  been  spoken  by  YOUR  UNKNOWN  FRIEND." 

Poor  as  my  opinion  was  of  my  master,  I  had  never 
believed  him  to  be  capable  of  such  villainy  as  this,  and  I 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  339 

• 

could  not  believe  it  when  the  lawyer  had  done  reading 
the  letter. 

"Oh,  sir,"  I  said,  "surely  that  is  some  base  imposi- 
tion ?  Surely  it  can  not  be  true  ?" 

"  That  is  what  I  have  told  your  mistress,"  he  answer- 
ed. "  But  she  says  in  return — 

"That  I  feel  it  to  be  true,"  my  mistress  broke  in, 
speaking  behind  the  handkerchief  in  a  faint,  smothered 
voice. 

"We  need  not  debate  the  question,"  the  lawyer  went 
on.  "  Our  business  now  is  to  prove  the  truth  or  false- 
hood of  this  letter.  That  must  be  done  at  once.  I  have 
written  to  one  of  my  clerks,  who  is  accustomed  to  con- 
ducting delicate  investigations,  to  come  to  this  house 
without  loss  of  time.  He  is  to  be  trusted  with  any 
thing,  and  he  will  pursue  the  needful  inquiries  immedi- 
ately. It  is  absolutely  necessary,  to  make  sure  of  com- 
mitting no  mistakes,  that  he  should  be  accompanied  by 
some  one  who  is  well  acquainted  with  Mr.  James  Smith's 
habits  and  personal  appearance,  and  your  mistress  has 
fixed  upon  you  to  be  that  person.  However  well  the  in- 
quiry is  managed,  it  may  be  attended  by  much  trouble 
and  delay,  may  necessitate  a  long  journey,  and  may  in- 
volve some  personal  danger.  Are  you,"  said  the  lawyer, 
looking  hard  at  me,  "  ready  to  suffer  any  inconvenience 
and  to  run  any  risk  for  your  mistress's  sake  ?" 

"  There  is  nothing  I  can  do,  sir,"  said  I,  "  that  I  will 
not  do.  I  am  afraid  I  am  not  clever  enough  to  be  of 
much  use;  but,  so  far  as  troubles  and  risks  are  concern- 
ed, I  am  ready  for  any  thing  from  this  moment." 

My  mistress  took  the  handkerchief  from  her  face,  look- 
ed at  me  with  her  eyes  full  of  tears,  and  held  out  her 
hand.  How  I  came  to  do  it  I  don't  know,  but  I  stooped 
down  and  kissed  the  hand  ^lit-  ottered  me,  feeling  half 
startled,  half  ashamed  at  my  own  boldness  the  moment 

after. 

15* 


340  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

• 

"  You  will  do,  my  man,"  said  the  lawyer,  nodding  his 
head.  "  Don't  trouble  yourself  about  the  cleverness  or 
the  cunning  that  may  be  wanted.  My  clerk  has  got  head 
enough  for  two.  I  have  only  one  word  more  to  say  be- 
fore you  go  down  stairs  again.  Remember  that  this  in- 
vestigation and  the  cause  that  leads  to  it  must  be  kept  a 
profound  secret.  Except  us  three,  and  the  clergyman 
here  (to  whom  your  mistress  has  written  word  of  what 
has  happened),  nobody  knows  any  thing  about  it.  I  will 
let  my  clerk  into  the  secret  when  he  joins  us.  As  soon 
as  you  and  he  are  away  from  the  house,  you  may  talk 
about  it.  Until  then,  you  will  close  your  lips  on  the  sub- 
ject." 

The  clerk  did  not  keep  us  long  waiting.  He  came  as 
fast  as  the  mail  from  London  could  bring  him. 

I  had  expected,  from  his  master's  description,  to  see  a 
serious,  sedate  man,  rather  sly  in  his  looks,  and  rather 
reserved  in  his  manner.  To  my  amazement,  this  prac- 
ticed hand  at  delicate  investigations  was  a  brisk,  plump, 
jolly  little  man,  with  a  comfortable  double  chin,  a  pair 
of  very  bright  black  eyes,  and  a  big  bottle-nose  of  the 
true  groggy  red  color.  He  wore  a  suit  of  black,  and 
a  limp,  dingy  white  cravat ;  took  snuff  perpetually  out 
of  a  very  large  box ;  walked  with  his  hands  crossed 
behind  his  back;  and  looked,  upon  the  whole,  much 
more  like  a  parson  of  free-and-easy  habits  than  a  law- 
yer's clerk. 

"  How  d'ye  do  ?"  says  he,  when  I  opened  the  door  to 
him.  "  I'm  the  man  you  expect  from  the  office  in  Lon- 
don. Just  say  Mr.  Dark,  will  you  ?  1M  sit  down  here 
till  you  come  back ;  and,  young  man,  if  there  is  such  a 
thing  as  a  glass  of  ale  in  the  house,  I  don't  mind  commit- 
ting myself  so  far  as  to  say  that  I'll  drink  it." 

I  got  him  the  ale  before  I  announced  him.  He  winked 
at  me  as  he  put  it  to  his  lips. 


QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  341 

"Your  good  health,"  says  he.  "I  like  you.  Don't 
forget  that  the  name's  Dark ;  and  just  leave  the  jug  and 
glass,  will  you,  in  case  my  master  keeps  me  waiting." 

I  announced  him  at  once,  and  was  told  to  show  him 
into  the  library. 

When  I  got  back  to  the  hall  the  jug  was  empty,  and 
Mr.  Dark  was  comforting  himself  with  a  pinch  of  snuff, 
snorting  over  it  like  a  perfect  grampus.  He  had  swal- 
lowed more  than  a  pint  of  the  strongest  old  ale  in  the 
house ;  and,  for  all  the  effect  it  seemed  to  have  had  on 
him,  he  might  just  as  well  have  been  drinking  so  much 
water. 

As  I  led  him  along  the  passage  to  the  library  Jose- 
phine passed  us.  Mr.  Dark  winked  at  me  again,  and 
made  her  a  low  bow. 

"  Lady's  maid,"  I  heard  him  whisper  to  himself.  "  A 
fine  wroman  to  look  at,  but  a  damned  bad  one  to  deal 
with."  I  turned  round  on  him,  rather  angry  at  his  cool 
ways,  and  looked  hard  at  him  just  before  I  opened  the 
library  door.  Mr.  Dark  looked  hard  at  me.  "All  right," 
says  he.  "  I  can  show  myself  in."  And  he  knocks  at 
the  door,  and  opens  it,  and  goes  in  with  another  wicked 
wink,  all  in  a  moment. 

Half  an  hour  later  the  bell  rang  for  me.  Mr.  Dark 
was  sitting  between  my  mistress  (who  was  looking  at 
him  in  amazement)  and  the  lawyer  (who  was  looking  at 
him  with  approval).  He  had  a  map  open  on  his  knee, 
and  a  pen  in  his  hand.  Judging  by  his  face,  the  com- 
munication of  the  secret  about  my  master  did  not  seem 
to  have  made  the  smallest  impression  on  him. 

"I've  got  leave  to  ask  you  a  question,"  says  he,  the 
moment  I  appeared.  "When  you  found  your  master's 
yacht  gone,  did  you  hear  which  way  she  had  sailed  ? 
Was  it  northward  toward  Scotland  ?  Speak  up,  young 
man,  speak  up !" 


342  THE    QUEEX    OF    IlEAKTS. 

"  Yes,"  I  answered.  "  The  boatmen  told  me  that 
when  I  made  inquiries  at  the  harbor." 

"  Well,  sir,"  says  Mr.  Dvirk,  turning  to  the  lawyer,  "  if 
he  said  he  was  going  to  Sweden,  he  seems  to  have  start- 
ed on  the  road  to  it,  at  all  events.  I  think  I  have  got 
my  instructions  now  ?" 

The  lawyer  nodded,  and  looked  at  my  mistress,  who 
bowed  her  head  to  him.  He  then  said,  turning  to  me, 

"  Pack  up  your  bag  for  traveling  at  once,  and  have  a 
conveyance  got  ready  to  go  to  the  nearest  post-town. 
Look  sharp,  young  man — look  sharp !" 

"  And,  whatever  happens  in  the  future,"  added  my 
mistress,  her  kind  voice  trembling  a  little,  "believe,  Wil- 
liam, that  I  shall  never  forget  the  proof  you  now  show 
of  your  devotion  to  me.  It  is  still  some  comfort  to  know 
that  I  have  your  fidelity  to  depend  on  in  this  dreadful 
trial — your  fidelity  and  the  extraordinary  intelligence  and 
experience  of  Mr.  Dark." 

Mr.  Dark  did  not  seem  to  hear  the  compliment.  He 
was  busy  writing,  with  his  paper  upon  the  map  on  his 
knee. 

A  quarter  of  an  hour  later,  when  I  had  ordered  the 
dog-cart,  and  had  got  down  into  the  hall  with  my  bag 
packed,  I  found  him  there  waiting  for  me.  He  was  sit- 
ting in  the  same  chair  which  he  had  occupied  when  he 
first  arrived,  and  he  had  another  jug  of  the  old  ale  on  the 
table  by  his  side. 

"  Got  any  fishing-rods  in  the  house  ?"  says  he,  when  I 
put  my  bag  down  in  the  hall. 

"Yes,"  I  replied,  astonished  at  the  question.  "What 
do  you  want  with  them  ?" 

"  Pack  a  couple  in  cases  for  traveling,"  says  Mr.  Dark, 
"  with  lines,  and  hooks,  and  fly-books  all  complete.  Have 
a  drop  of  the  ale  before  you  go  —  and  don't  stare,  \\il- 
liam,  don't  stare.  I'll  let  the  light  in  on  you  as  soon  as 


THK    C>UKEX    OF    HEAUTS.  343 

we  are  out  of  the  house.  Oft'  with  you  for  the  rods  !  I 
want  to  be  on  the  road  in  tive  minutes." 

When  I  came  back  with  the  rods  and  tackle  I  found 
Mr.  Dark  in  the  dog-cart. 

"Money,  luggage,  fishing-rods,  papers  of  directions, 
copy  of  anonymous  letter,  guide-book,  map,"  says  he, 
running  over  in  his  mind  the  things  wanted  for  the  jour- 
ney— "  all  right  so  far.  Drive  oft"." 

I  took  the  reins  and  started  the  horse.  As  we  left  the 
house  I  saw  my  mistress  and  Josephine  looking  after  us 
from  two  of  the  windows  on  the  second  floor.  The 
memory  of  those  two  attentive  faces — one  so  fair  and  so 
good,  the  other  so  yellow  and  so  wicked — haunted  my 
mind  perpetually  for  many  days  afterward. 

"  Now,  William,"  says  Mr.  Dark,  when  we  were  clear 
of  the  lodge  gates,  "I'm  going  to  begin  by  telling  you 
that  you  must  step  out  of  your  own  character  till  farther 
notice.  You  are  a  clerk  in  a  bank,  and  I'm  another. 
We  have  got  our  regular  holiday,  that  comes,  like  Christ- 
mas, once  a  year,  and  we  are  taking  a  little  tour  in  Scot- 
land to  see  the  curiosities,  and  to  breathe  the  sea  air,  and 
to  get  some  fishing  whenever  we  can.  I'm  the  fat  cash- 
ier who  digs  holes  in  a  drawerful  of  gold  with  a  copper 
shovel,  and  you're  the  arithmetical  young  man  who  sits 
on  a  perch  behind  me  and  keeps  the  books.  Scotland's 
a  beautiful  country,  William.  Can  you  make  whisky- 
toddy  ?  I  can ;  and,  what's  more,  unlikely  as  the  thing 
may  seem  to  you,  I  can  actually  drink  it  into  the  bar- 
gain." 

"Scotland!"  says  I.  "What  are  we  going  to  Scot- 
land for  ?" 

"  Question  for  question,"  says  Mr.  Dark.  "  What  are 
we  starting  on  a  journey  for?" 

"To  find  my  master,"  I  answered,  "and  to  make  sure 
if  the  letter  about  him  is  true." 


344  THE    QUEEX    OF    I1EAKTS. 

"Very  good,"  says  he.  "How  would  I/OK  set  about 
doing  that,  eh?" 

"I  should  go  and  ask  about  him  at  Stockholm  in 
Sweden,  where  he  said  his  letters  were  to  be  sent." 

"Should  you,  indeed  ?"  says  Mr.  Dark.  "  If  you  were 
a  shepherd,  William,  and  had  lost  a  sheep  in  Cumber- 
land, would  you  begin  looking  for  it  at  the  Land's  End, 
or  would  you  try  a  little  nearer  home  ?" 

"  You're  attempting  to  make  a  fool  of  me  now," 
says  I. 

"  No,"  says  Mr.  Dark,  "  I'm  only  letting  the  light  in 
on  you,  as  I  said  I  would.  Now  listen  to  reason,  Wil- 
liam, and  profit  by  it  as  much  as  you  can.  Mr.  James 
Smith  says  he  is  going  on  a  cruise  to  Sweden,  and  makes 
his  word  good,  at  the  beginning,  by  stalling  northward 
toward  the  coast  of  Scotland.  What  does  he  go  in  ?  \ 
yacht.  Do  yachts  carry  live  beasts  and  a  butcher  on 
board?  No.  "Will  joints  of  meat  keep  fresh  all  the 
way  from  Cumberland  to  Sweden?  No.  Do  gentle- 
men like  living  on  salt  provisions  ?  No.  What  follows 
from  these  three  Noes?  That  Mr.  James  Smith  must 
have  stopped  somewhere  on  the  way  to  Sweden  to  sup- 
ply his  sea-larder  with  fresh  provisions.  Where,  in  that 
case,  must  he  stop.  Somewhere  in  Scotland,  supposing 
he  didn't  alter  his  course  when  he  was  out  of  sight  of 
your  sea-port.  Where  in  Scotland  ?  Northward  on  the 
main  land,  or  westward  at  one  of  the  islands  ?  Most 
likely  on  the  main  land,  where  the  sea-side  places  are 
largest,  and  where  he  is  sure  of  getting  all  the  stores 
he  wants.  Next,  what  is  our  business?  Not  to  risk 
losing  a  link  in  the  chain  of  evidence  by  missing  any 
place  where  he  has  put  his  foot  on  shore.  Not  to  over- 
shoot the  mark  when  we  want  to  hit  it  in  the  bull's-eye. 
Not  to  waste  money  and  time  by  taking  a  long  trip  to 
Sweden  till  we  know  that  we  must  absolvitely  go  there. 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  345 

Where  is  our  journey  of  discovery  to  take  us  to  first, 
then  ?  Clearly  to  the  north  of  Scotland.  What  do  you 
say  to  that,  Mr.  William  ?  Is  my  catechism  all  correct, 
or  has  your  strong  ale  muddled  my  head  ?" 

It  was  evident  by  this  time  that  no  ale  could  do  that, 
and  I  told  him  so.  He  chuckled,  winked  at  me,  and, 
taking  another  pinch  of  snuff,  said  he  would  now  turn 
the  whole  case  over  in  his  mind  again,  and  make  sure 
that  he  had  got  all  the  bearings  of  it  quite  clear. 

By  the  time  we  reached  the  post-town  he  had  accom- 
plished this  mental  effort  to  his  own  perfect  satisfaction, 
and  was  quite  ready  to  compare  the  ale  at  the  inn  with 
the  ale  at  Darrock  Hall.  The  dog-cart  was  left  to  be 
taken  back  the  next  morning  by  the  ostler.  A  post- 
chaise  and  horses  were  ordered  out.  A  loaf  of  bread,  a 
Bologna  sausage,  and  two  bottles  of  sherry  were  put  into 
the  pockets  of  the  carriage ;  we  took  our  seats,  and  start- 
ed briskly  on  our  doubtful  journey. 

"  One  word  more  of  friendly  advice,"  says  Mr.  Dark, 
settling  himself  comfortably  in  his  corner  of  the  carriage. 
"  Take  your  sleep,  William,  whenever  you  feel  that  you 
can  get  it.  You  won't  find  yourself  in  bed  again  till  we 
get  to  Glasgow." 


CHAPTER  in. 

ALTHOUGH  the  events  that  I  am  now  relating  happen- 
ed many  years  ago,  I  shall  still,  for  caution's  sake,  avoid 
mentioning  by  name  the  various  places  visited  by  Mr. 
Dark  and  myself  for  the  purpose  of  making  inquiries. 
It  will  be  enough  if  I  describe  generally  what  we  did, 
and  if  I  mention  in  substance  only  the  result  at  which 
we  ultimately  arrived. 

On  reaching  Glasgow,  Mr.  Dark  turned  the  whole  case 


346  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

over  in  his  mind  once  more.  The  result  was  that  he  al- 
tered his  original  intention  of  going  straight  to  the  north 
of  Scotland,  considering  it  safer  to  make  sure,  if  possi- 
ble, of  the  course  the  yacht  had  taken  in  her  cruise  along 
the  western  coast. 

The  carrying  out  of  this  new  resolution  involved  the 
necessity  of  delaying  our  onward  journey  by  perpetually 
diverging  from  the  direct  road.  Three  times  we  were 
sent  uselessly  to  wild  places  in  the  Hebrides  by  false  re- 
ports. Twice  we  wandered  away  inland,  following  gen- 
tlemen who  answered  generally  to  the  description  of 
Mr.  James  Smith,  but  who  turned  out  to  be  the  wrong 
men  as  soon  as  we  set  eyes  on  them.  These  vain  ex- 
cursions— especially  the  three  to  the  western  islands — 
consumed  time  terribly.  It  was  more  than  two  months 
from  the  day  when  we  had  left  Darrock'  Hall  before  we 
found  ourselves  up  at  the  very  top  of  Scotland  at  last, 
driving  into  a  considerable  sea-side  town,  with  a  harbor 
attached  to  it.  Thus  far  our  journey  had  led  to  no  re- 
sults, and  I  began  to  despair  of  success.  As  for  Mr. 
Dark,  he  never  got  to  the  end  of  his  sweet  temper  and 
his  wonderful  patience. 

"  You  don't  know  how  to  wait,  William,"  was  his  con- 
stant remark  whenever  he  heard  me  complaining.  "  I  do." 

We  drove  into  the  town  toward  evening  in  a  modest 
little  gig,  and  put  up,  according  to  our  usual  custom,  at 
one  of  the  inferior  inns. 

"  We  must  begin  at  the  bottom,"  Mr.  Dark  used  to 
say.  "  Higli  company  in  a  coffee-room  won't  be  familiar 
with  us ;  low  company  in  a  tap-room  will."  And  he  cer- 
tainly proved  the  truth  of  his  own  words.  The  like  of 
him  for  making  intimate  friends  of  total  strangers  at  the 
shortest  notice  I  have  never  met  with  before  or  since. 
Cautious  as  the  Scotch  are,  Mr.  Dark  seemed  to  have 
the  knack  of  twisting  them  round  his  linger  as  he  pleased. 


OF    1IEAKTS.  347 

He  varied  his  way  artfully  with  different  men,  but  there 
were  three  standing  opinions  of  his  which  lie  made  a 
point  of  expressing  in  all  varieties  of  company  while  we 
were  in  Scotland.  In  the  first  place,  he  thought  the  view 
of  Edinburgh  from  Arthur's  Seat  the  finest  in  the  world. 

O 

In  the  second  place,  he  considered  whisky  to  be  the  most 
wholesome  spirit  in  the  world.  In  the  third  place,  he 
believed  his  late  beloved  mother  to  be  the  best  woman 
in  the  world.  It  may  be  worthy  of  note  that,  whenever 
he  expressed  this  last  opinion  in  Scotland,  he  invariably 
added  that  her  maiden  name  was  Macleod. 

Well,  we  put  up  at  a  modest  little  inn  near  the  harbor. 
I  was  dead  tired  with  the  journey,  and  lay  down  on  my 
bed  to  get  some  rest.  Mr.  Dark,  whom  nothing  ever 
fatigued,  left  me  to  take  his  toddy  and  pipe  among  the 
company  in  the  tap-room. 

I  don't  know  how  long  I  had  been  asleep  when  I  was 
roused  by  a  shake  on  my  shoulder.  The  room  was  pitch 
dark,  and  I  felt  a  hand  suddenly  clapped  over  my  mouth. 
Then  a  strong  smell  of  whisky  and  tobacco  saluted  my 
nostrils,  and  a  whisper  stole  into  my  ear — 

"  William,  we  have  got  to  the  end  of  our  journey." 

"  Mr.  Dark,"  I  stammered  out,  "•  is  that  you  ?  What, 
in  heaven's  name,  do  you  mean  ?" 

"The  yacht  put  in  here,"  was  the  answer,  still  in  a 
whisper,  "  and  your  blackguard  of  a  master  came 
ashore — " 

"  Oh,  Mr.  Dark,"  I  broke  in,  "  don't  tell  me  that  the 
letter  is  true !" 

"  Every  word  of  it,"  says  he.  "  He  was  married  here, 
and  was  off  again  to  the  Mediterranean  with  Number 
Two  a  good  three  weeks  before  we  left  your  mistress's 
house.  Hush !  don't  say  a  word.  Go  to  sleep  again,  or 
strike  a  light,  if  you  like  it  better.  Do  any  thing  but 
come  down  stairs  with  me.  I'm  going  to  find  out  all  the 


348  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

particulars  without  seeming  to  want  to  know  one  of 
them.  Yours  is  a  very  good-looking  face,  William,  but 
it's  so  infernally  honest  that  I  can't  trust  it  in  the  tap- 
room. I'm  making  friends  with  the  Scotchmen  already. 
They  know  my  opinion  of  Arthur's  Seat ;  they  see  what 
I  think  of  whisky ;  and  I  rather  think  it  won't  be  long 
before  they  hear  that  my  mother's  maiden  name  was 
Macleod." 

With  those  words  he  slipped  out  of  the  room,  and  left 
me,  as  he  had  found  me,  in  the  dark. 

I  was  far  too  much  agitated  by  what  I  had  heard  to 
think  of  going  to  sleep  again,  so  I  struck  a  light,  and 
tried  to  amuse  myself  as  well  as  I  could  with  an  old  news- 
paper that  had  been  stuffed  into  my  carpet  bag.  It  was 
then  nearly  ten  o'clock.  Two  hours  later,  when  the  house 
shut  up,  Mr.  Dark  came  back  to  me  again  in  high  spirits. 

"  I  have  got  the  whole  case  here,"  says  he,  tapping  his 
forehead — "  the  whole  case,  as  neat  and  clean  as  if  it  was 
drawn  in  a  brief.  That  master  of  yours  doesn't  stick  at 
a  trifle,  William.  It's  my  opinion  that  your  mistress  and 
you  have  not  seen  the  last  of  him  yet." 

We  were  sleeping  that  night  in  a  double-bedded  room. 
As  soon  as  Mr.  Dark  had  secured  the  door  and  disposed 
himself  comfortably  in  his  bed,  he  entered  on  a  detailed 
narrative  of  the  particulars  communicated  to  him  in  the 
tap-room.  The  substance  of  what  he  told  me  may  be 
related  as  follows : 

The  yacht  had  had  a  wonderful  run  all  the  way  to 
Cape  Wrath.  On  rounding  that  headland  she  had  met 
the  wind  nearly  dead  against  her,  and  had  beaten  every 
inch  of  the  way  to  the  sea-port  town,  where  she  had  put 
in  tc  get  a  supply  of  provisions,  and  to  wait  for  a  change 
in  the  wind. 

Mr.  James  Smith  had  gone  ashore  to  look  about  him, 
and  to  see  whether  the  principal  hotel  was  the  sort  of 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  349 

house  at  which  he  would  like  to  stop  for  a  few  days.  In 
the  course  of  his  wandering  about  the  town,  his  attention 
had  been  attracted  to  a  decent  house,  where  lodgings 
were  to  be  let,  by  the  sight  of  a  very  pretty  girl  sitting 
at  work  at  the  parlor  window.  He  was  so  struck  by 
her  face  that  he  came  back  twice  to  look  at  it,  determin- 
ing, the  second  time,  to  try  if  he  could  not  make  ac- 
quaintance with  her  by  asking  to  see  the  lodgings.  He 
Avas  shown  the  rooms  by  the  girl's  mother,  a  very  re- 
spectable woman,  whom  he  discovered  to  be  the  wife 
of  the  master  and  part  owner  of  a  small  coasting  vessel, 
then  away  at  sea.  With  a  little  manoeuvring  he  man- 
aged to  get  into  the  parlor  where  the  daughter  was  at 
work,  and  to  exchange  a  few  words  with  her.  Her 
voice  and  manner  completed  the  attraction  of  her  face. 
Mr.  James  Smith  decided,  in  his  headlong  way,  that  he 
was  violently  in  love  with  her,  and,  without  hesitating 
another  instant,  he  took  the  lodgings  on  the  spot  for  a 
month  certain. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  say  that  his  designs  on  the  girl 
were  of  the  most  disgraceful  kind,  and  that  he  represent- 
ed himself  to  the  mother  and  daughter  as  a  single  man. 
Helped  by  his  advantages  of  money,  position,  and  per- 
sonal appearance,  he  had  made  sure  that  the  ruin  of  the 
girl  might  be  effected  with  very  little  difficulty ;  but  he 
soon  found  that  he  had  undertaken  no  easy  conquest. 

The  mother's  watchfulness  never  slept,  and  the  daugh- 
ter's presence  of  mind  never  failed  her.  She  admired 
Mr.  James  Smith's  tall  figure  and  splendid  whiskers ;  she 
showed  the  most  encouraging  partiality  for  his  society ; 
she  smiled  at  his  compliments,  and  blushed  whenever  he 
looked  at  her ;  but,  whether  it  was  cunning  or  whether 
it  was  innocence,  she  seemed  incapable  of  understanding 
that  his  advances  toward  her  were  of  any  other  than  an 
honorable  kind.  At  the  slightest  approach  to  undue  fa- 


350  THK    t^LEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

miliarity,  she  drew  back  with  a  kind  of  contemptuous 
surprise  in  her  face,  which  utterly  perplexed  Mr.  James 
Smith.  He  had  not  calculated  on  that  sort  of  resistance, 
and  he  could  not  see  his  way  to  overcoming  it.  The 
weeks  passed ;  the  month  for  which  he  had  taken  the 
lodgings  expired.  Time  had  strengthened  the  girl's  hold 
on  him  till  his  admiration  for  her  amounted  to  downright 
infatuation,  and  he  had  not  advanced  one  step  yet  toward 
the  fulfillment  of  the  vicious  purpose  with  which  he  had 
entered  the  house. 

At  this  time  he  must  have  made  some  fresh  attempt 
on  the  girl's  virtue,  which  produced  a  coolness  between 
them ;  for,  instead  of  taking  the  lodgings  for  another 
term,  he  removed  to  his  yacht  in  the  harbor,  and  slept 
on  board  for  two  nights. 

The  wind  was  now  fair,  and  the  stores  were  on  board, 
but  he  gave  no  orders  to  the  sailing-master  to  weigh  an- 
chor. On  the  third  day,  the  cause  of  the  coolness,  what- 
ever it  was,  appears  to  have  been  removed,  and  he  re- 
turned to  his  lodgings  on  shore.  Some  of  the  more  in- 
quisitive among  the  townspeople  observed  soon  after- 
ward, when  they  met  him  in  the  street,  that  he  looked 
rather  anxious  and  uneasy.  The  conclusion  had  prob- 
ably forced  itself  upon  his  mind,  by  this  time,  that  he 
must  decide  on  pursuing  one  of  two  courses:  either  he 
must  resolve  to  make  the  sacrifice  of  leaving  the  girl  alto- 
gether, or  he  must  commit  the  villainy  of  marrying  her. 

Scoundrel  as  he  was,  he  hesitated  at  encountering  the 
risk  —  perhaps,  also,  at  being  guilty  of  the  crime  —  in- 
volved in  this  last  alternative.  While  he  was  still  in 
doubt,  the  father's  coasting  vessel  sailed  into  the  harbor, 
and  the  father's  presence  on  the  scene  decided  him  at 
last.  How  this  new  influence  acted  it  was  impossible  to 
find  out  from  the  imperfect  evidence  of  persons  who 
were  not  admitted  to  the  family  councils.  The  fact,  how- 


THK    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  351 

ever,  was  certain,  that  the  date  of  the  father's  return  and 
the  date  of  Mr.  James  Smith's  first  wicked  resolution  to 
marry  the  girl  might  both  be  fixed,  as  nearly  as  possible, 
at  one  and  the  same  time. 

Having  once  made  up  his  mind  to  the  commission  of 
the  crime,  he  proceeded,  with  all  possible  coolness  and 
cunning,  to  provide  against  the  chances  of  detection. 

Returning  on  board  his  yacht,  he  announced  that  he 
had  given  up  his  intention  of  cruising  to  Sweden,  and 
that  he  intended  to  amuse  himself  by  a  long  fishing  tour 
in  Scotland.  After  this  explanation,  he  ordered  the  ves- 
sel to  be  laid  up  in  the  harbor,  gave  the  sailing-master 
leave  of  absence  to  return  to  his  family  at  Cowes,  and 
paid  off  the  whole  of  the  crew,  from  the  mate  to  the 
cabin-boy.  By  these  means  he  cleared  the  scene,  at  one 
blow,  of  the  only  people  in  the  town  who  knew  of  the 
existence  of  his  unhappy  wife.  After  that,  the  news  of 
his  approaching  marriage  might  be  made  public  without 
risk  of  discovery,  his  own  common  name  being  of  itself 
a  sufficient  protection  in  case  the  event  was  mentioned 
in  the  Scotch  newspapers.  All  his  friends,  even  his  wife 
herself,  might  read  a  report  of  the  marriage  of  Mr.  James 
Smith  without  having  the  slightest  suspicion  of  who  the 
bridegroom  really  was. 

A  fortnight  after  the  paying  off  of  the  crew  he  was 
married  to  the  merchant-captain's  daughter.  The  father 
of  the  girl  was  well  known  among  his  fellow-townsmen 
as  a  selfish,  grasping  man,  who  was  too  anxiotis  to  secure 
a  rich  son-in-law  to  object  to  any  proposals  for  hastening 
the  marriage.  He  and  his  wife,  and  a  few  intimate  rela- 
tions, had  been  present  at  the  ceremony ;  and,  after  it 
had  been  performed,  the  newly-married  couple  left  the 
town  at  once  for  a  honeymoon  trip  to  the  Highland 
lakes. 

Two  days  later,  however,  they  unexpectedly  returned, 


352  THE  QUEEN'  OF  HEARTS. 

announcing  a  complete  change  in  their  plans.  The  bride- 
groom (thinking,  probably,  that  he  would  be  safer  out  of 
England  than  in  it)  had  been  pleasing  the  bride's  fancy 
by  his  descriptions  of  the  climate  and  the  scenery  of 
southern  parts.  The  new  Mrs.  James  Smith  was  all  cu- 
riosity to  see  Spain  and  Italy ;  and,  having  often  proved 
herself  an  excellent  sailor  on  board  her  father's  vessel, 
was  anxious  to  go  to  the  Mediterranean  in  the  easiest 
way  by  sea.  Her  affectionate  husband,  having  now  no 
other  object  in  life  than  to  gratify  her  wishes,  had  given 
up  the  Highland  excursion,  and  had  returned  to  have  his 
yacht  got  ready  for  sea  immediately.  In  this  explana- 
tion there  was  nothing  to  awaken  the  suspicions  of  the 
lady's  parents.  The  mother  thought  Mr.  James  Smith  a 
model  among  bridegrooms.  The  father  lent  his  assist- 
ance to  man  the  yacht  at  the  shortest  notice  with  as 
smart  a  crew  as  could  be  picked  up  about  the  town. 
Principally  through  his  exertions,  the  vessel  was  got 
ready  for  sea  with  extraordinary  dispatch.  The  sails 
were  bent,  the  provisions  were  put  on  board,  and  Mr. 
James  Smith  sailed  for  the  Mediterranean  with  the  un- 
fortunate wo7iian  who  believed  herself  to  be  his  wife  be- 
fore Mr.  Dark  and  myself  set  forth  to  look  after  him  from 
Darrock  Hall. 

Such  was  the  true  account  of  my  master's  infamous  con- 
duct in  Scotland  as  it  was  related  to  me.  On  concluding, 
Mr.  Dark  hinted  that  he  had  something  still  left  to  tell 
me,  but  declared  that  he  was  too  sleepy  to  talk  any  more 
that  night.  As  soon  as  we  were  awake  the  next  morn- 
ing he  returned  to  the  subject. 

"  I  didn't  finish  all  I  had  to  say  last  night,  did  I  ?"  he 
began. 

"  You  unfortunately  told  me  enough,  and  more  than 
enough,  to  prove  the  truth  of  the  statement  in  the  anony- 
mous letter,"  I  answered. 


THE    QUEEN'    OK    1IEAUTS.  353 

"  Yes,"  says  Mr.  Dark,  "  but  did  I  tell  you  who  wrote 
the  anonymous  letter  ?" 

"You  don't  mean  to  say  that  you  have  found  that 
out !"  says  I. 

"  I  think  I  have,"  was  the  cool  answer.  "  When  I 
heard  about  your  precious  master  paying  off  the  regular 
crew  of  the  yacht,  I  put  the  circumstance  by  in  my  mind, 
to  be  brought  out  again  and  sifted  a  little  as  soon  as  the 

~  CU 

opportunity  offered.  It  offered  in  about  half  an  hour. 
Says  I  to  the  ganger,  who  was  the  principal  talker  in  the 
room,  'How  about  those  men  that  Mr.  Smith  paid  off? 
Did  they  all  go  as  soon  as  they  got  their  money,  or  did 
they  stop  here  till  they  had  spent  every  farthing  of  it  in 
the  public  houses  ?'  The  ganger  laughs.  '  Xo  such  luck,' 
says  he,  in  the  broadest  possible  Scotch  (which  I'll  trans- 
late into  English,  William,  for  your  benefit) ;  '  no  such 
luck ;  they  all  went  south,  to  spend  their  money  among 
finer  people  than  us — all,  that  is  to  say,  with  one  excep- 
tion. It  was  thought  the  steward  of  the  yacht  had  gone 
along  with  the  rest,  when,  the  very  day  Mr.  Smith  sailed 
for  the  Mediterranean,  who  should  turn  up  unexpectedly 
but  the  steward  himself!  Where  he  had  been  hiding, 
and  why  he  had  been  hiding,  nobody  could  tell.'  '  Per- 
haps he  had  been  imitating  his  master,  and  looking  out 
for  a  wife,'  says  I.  '  Likely  enough,'  says  the  ganger ; 
*  he  gave  a  very  confused  account  of  himself,  and  he  cut 
all  questions  short  by  going  away  south  in  a  violent  hur- 
ay.'  That  was  enough  for  me:  I  let  the  subject  drop. 
Clear  as  daylight,  isn't  it,  William  ?  The  steward  sus- 
pected something  wrong — the  steward  waited  and  watch- 
ed— the  steward  wrote  that  anonymous  letter  to  your 
mistress.  We  can  find  him,  if  we  want  him,  by  inquiring 
at  Cowes ;  and  we  can  send  to  the  church  for  legal  evi- 
dence of  the  marriage  as  soon  as  we  are  instructed  to  do 
so.  All  that  we  have  got  to  do  now  is  to  go  back  to 


354  TIIK    tjTKKN    OK    UK  ARTS. 

your  mistress,  and  see  what  course  she  means  to  take 
under  the  circumstances.  It's  a  pretty  ease,  William,  so 
far — an  uncommonly  pretty  case,  as  it  stands  at  present." 

We  returned  to  Darrock  Hall  as  fast  as  coaches  and 
post-horses  could  carry  us. 

Having  from  the  first  believed  that  the  statement  in 
the  anonymous  letter  was  true,  my  mistress  received  the 
bad  news  we  brought  calmly  and  resignedly — so  far,  at 
least,  as  outward  appearances  went.  She  astonished  and 
disappointed  Mr.  Dark  by  declining  to  act  in  any  way 
on  the  information  that  he  had  collected  for  her,  and  by 
insisting  that  the  whole  affair  should  still  be  buried  in  the 
profoundest  secrecy.  For  the  first  time  since  I  had  known 
my  traveling  companion,  he  became  depressed  in  spirits 
on  hearing  that  nothing  more  was  to  be  done,  and,  al- 
though he  left  the  Hall  with  a  handsome  present,  he  left 
it  discontentedly. 

"  Such  a  pretty  case,  William,"  says  he,  quite  sorrow- 
fully, as  we  shook  hands — "  such  an  uncommonly  pretty 
case — it's  a  thousand  pities  to  stop  it,  in  this  way,  before 
it's  half  over !" 

"  You  don't  know  what  a  proud  lady  and  what  a  deli- 
cate lady  my  mistress  is,"  I  answered.  "  She  would  die 
rather  than  expose  her  forlorn  situation  in  a  public  court 
for  the  sake  of  punishing  her  husband." 

"  Bless  your  simple  heart !"  says  Mr.  Dark,  "  do  you 
really  think,  now,  that  such  a  case  as  this  can  be  hushed 
up?" 

"  Why  not,"  I  asked,  "  if  we  all  keep  the  secret  ?" 

"  That  for  the  secret !"  cries  Mr.  Dark,  snapping  his 
fingers.  "  Your  master  will  let  the  cat  out  of  the  bag, 
if  nobody  else  does." 

"My  master!"  I  repeated,  in  amazement. 

"Yes,  your  master!"  says  Mr.  Dark.  "I  have  had 
some  experience  in  my  time,  and  I  say  you  have  not  seen 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  355 

the  last  of  him  yet.     Mark  my   words,  William,   Mr, 
James  Smith  will  come  back." 

With  that  prophecy  Mr.  Dark  fretfully  treated  himself 
to  a  last  pinch  of  snuff,  and  departed  in  dudgeon  on  his 
journey  back  to  his  master  in  London.  His  last  words 
hung  heavily  on  my  mind  for  days  after  he  had  gone. 
It  was  some  weeks  before  I  got  over  a  habit  of  starting 
whenever  the  bell  was  rung  at  the  front  door. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

OUR  life  at  the  Hall  soon  returned  to  its  old,  dreary 
course.  The  lawyer  in  London  wrote  to  my  mistress  to 
ask  her  to  come  and  stay  for  a  little  while  with  his  wife ; 
but  she  declined  the  invitation,  being  averse  to  facing 
company  after  what  had  happened  to  her.  Though  she 
tried  hard  to  keep  the  real  state  of  her  mind  concealed 
from  all  about  her,  I,  for  one,  could  see  plainly  enough 
that  she  was  pining  under  the  bitter  injury  that  had 
been  inflicted  on  her.  What  effect  continued  solitude 
might  have  had  on  her  spirits  I  tremble  to  think. 

Fortunately  for  herself,  it  occurred  to  her,  before  long, 
to  send  and  invite  Mr.  Meeke  to  resume  his  musical  prac- 
ticing with  her  at  the  Hall.  She  told  him — and,  as  it 
seemed  to  me,  with  perfect  truth — that  any  implied  en- 
gagement which  he  had  made  with  Mr.  James  Smith  was 
now  canceled,  since  the  person  so  named  had  morally  for- 
feited all  his  claims  as  a  husband,  first,  by  his  desertion 
of  her,  and,  secondly,  by  his  criminal  marriage  with  an- 
other woman.  After  stating  this  view  of  the  matter,  she 
left  it  to  Mr.  Meeke  to  decide  whether  the  perfectly  inno- 
cent connection  between  them  should  be  resumed  or  not. 
The  little  parson,  after  hesitating  and  pondering  in  his 
helpless  way,  ended  by  agreeing  with  my  mistress,  and 

16 


356  THE   QUEEN*    OF    HEARTS. 

by  coming  back  once  more  to  the  Hall  with  his  fiddle  un- 
aer  ms  arm.  This  renewal  of  their  old  habits  might  have 
been  imprudent  enough,  as  tending  to  weaken  my  mis- 
tress's case  in  the  eyes  of  the  world,  but,  for  all  that,  it 
was  the  most  sensible  course  she  could  take  for  her  own 
sake.  The  harmless  company  of  Mr.  Meeke,  and  the  re- 
lief of  playing  the  old  tunes  again  in  the  old  way,  saved 
her,  I  verily  believe,  from  sinking  altogether  under  the 
oppression  of  the  shocking  situation  in  which  she  was 
now  placed. 

So,  with  the  assistance  of  Mr.  Meeke  and  his  fiddle,  my 
mistress  got  through  the  weary  time.  The  winter  pass- 
ed, the  spring  came,  and  no  fresh  tidings  reached  us  of 
Mr.  James  Smith.  It  had  been  a  long,  hard  winter  that 
year,  and  the  spring  was  backward  and  rainy.  The  first 
really  fine  day  we  had  was  the  day  that  fell  on  the  four- 
teenth of  March. 

I  am  particular  in  mentioning  this  date  merely  because 
it  is  fixed  forever  in  my  memory.  As  long  as  there  is 
life  in  me  I  shall  remember  that  fourteenth  of  March,  and 
the  smallest  circumstances  connected  with  it. 

The  day  began  ill,  with  what  superstitious  people 
would  think  a  bad  omen.  My  mistress  remained  late  in 
her  room  in  the  morning,  amusing  herself  by  looking 
over  her  clothes,  and  by  setting  to  rights  some  drawers 
in  her  cabinet  which  she  had  not  opened  for  some  time 
past.  Just  before  luncheon  we  Avere  startled  by  hearing 
the  drawing-room  bell  rung  violently.  I  ran  up  to  see 
what  was  the  matter,  and  the  quadroon,  Josephine,  who 
had  heard  the  bell  in  another  part  of  the  house,  hastened 
to  answer  it  also.  She  got  into  the  drawing-room  first, 
and  I  followed  close  on  her  heels.  My  mistress  was 
standing  alone  on  the  hearth-rug,  with  an  appearance  of 
great  discomposure  in  her  face  and  manner. 

"I   have   been   robbed!"    she   said,  vehemently,    "I 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  U57 

don't  know  when  or  how ;  but  I  miss  a  pair  of  brace- 
lets, three  rings,  and  a  quantity  of  old-fashioned  lace 
pocket-handkerchiefs." 

"  If  you  have  any  suspicions,  ma'am,"  said  Josephine, 
in  a  sharp,  sudden  way,  "  say  who  they  point  at.  My 
boxes,  for  one,  are  quite  at  your  disposal." 

"  Who  asked  about  your  boxes  ?"  said  my  mistress, 
angrily.  "  Be  a  little  less  ready  with  your  answer,  if 
you  please,  the  next  time  I  speak." 

She  then  turned  to  me,  and  began  explaining  the  cir- 
cumstances under  which  she  had  discovered  her  loss.  I 
suggested  that  the  missing  things  should  be  well  search- 
ed for  first,  and  then,  if  nothing  came  of  that,  that  I  should 
go  for  the  constable,  and  place  the  matter  under  his  di- 
rection. 

My  mistress  agreed  to  this  plan,  and  the  search  was 
undertaken  immediately.  It  lasted  till  dinner-time,  and 
led  to  no  results.  I  then  proposed  going  for  the  consta- 
ble. But  my  mistress  said  it  was  too  late  to  do  any 
thing  that  day,  and  told  me  to  wait  at  table  as  usual,  and 
to  go  on  my  errand  the  first  thing  the  next  morning. 
Mr.  Meeke  was  corning  with  some  new  music  in  the 
evening,  and  I  suspect  she  was  not  willing  to  be  disturbed 
at  her  favorite  occupation  by  the  arrival  of  the  constable. 

When  dinner  was  over  the  parson  came,  and  the  con- 
cert went  on  as  usual  through  the  evening.  At  ten 
o'clock  I  took  up  the  tray,  with  the  wine,  and  soda-wa- 
ter, and  biscuits.  Just  as  I  was  opening  one  of  the  bot- 
tles of  soda-water,  there  was  a  sound  of  wheels  on  the 
drive  outside,  and  a  ring  at  the  bell. 

I  had  unfastened  the  wires  of  the  cork,  and  could  not 
put  the  bottle  down  to  run  at  once  to  the  door.  One  of 
the  female  servants  answered  it.  I  heard  a  sort  of  half 
scream — then  the  sound  of  a  footstep  that  was  familiar 
to  me. 


358  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

My  mistress  turned  round  from  the  piano,  and  looked 
me  hard  in  the  face. 

"  William,"  she  said,  "  do  you  know  that  step  ?" 

Before  I  could  answer  the  door  was  pushed  open,  and 
Mr.  James  Smith  walked  into  the  room. 

He  had  his  hat  on.  His  long  hair  flowed  down  under 
it  over  the  collar  of  his  coat ;  his  bright  black  eyes,  after 
resting  an  instant  on  my  mistress,  turned  to  Mr.  Meeke. 
His  heavy  eyebrows  met  together,  and  one  of  his  hands 
went  up  to  one  of  his  bushy  black  Avhiskers,  and  pulled 
at  it  angrily. 

"You  here  again!"  he  said,  advancing  a  few  steps 
toward  the  little  parson,  who  sat  trembling  all  over, 
with  his  fiddle  hugged  up  in  his  arms  as  if  it  had  been  a 
child. 

Seeing  her  villainous  husband  advance,  my  mistress 
moved  too,  so  as  to  face  him.  He  turned  round  on  her 
at  the  first  step  she  took  as  quick  as  lightning. 

"You  shameless  Avoman !"  he  said.  "Can  you  look 
me  in  the  face  in  the  presence  of  that  man  ?"  He  point- 
ed, as  he  spoke,  to  Mr.  Meeke. 

My  mistress  never  shrank  when  he  turned  upon  her. 
Xot  a  sign  of  fear  was  in  her  face  when  they  confronted 
each  other.  Not  the  faintest  flush  of  anger  came  into 
her  cheeks  when  he  spoke.  The  sense  of  the  insult  and 
injury  that  he  had  inflicted  on  her,  and  the  consciousness 
of  knowing  his  guilty  secret,  gave  her  all  her  self-posses- 
sion at  that  trying  moment. 

"  I  ask  you  again,"  he  repeated,  finding  that  she  did 
not  answer  him,  "  how  dare  you  look  me  in  the  fact-  in 
the  presence  of  that  man  ?" 

She  raised  her  steady  eyes  to  his  hat,  which  he  still 
kept  on  his  head. 

"Who  has  taught  you  to  come  into  a  room  and  speak 
to  a  lady  with  your  hat  on?"  she  asked,  in  quiet,  coiv 


THE    Qt'EEX    OF    HEARTS.  359 

temntuous  tones.  "Is  that  a  habit  which  is  sanctioned 
by  your  new  irlf,  f 

My  eyes  were  on  him  as  she  said  those  last  words. 
His  complexion,  naturally  dark  and  swarthy,  changed 
instantly  to  a  livid  yellow  white  ;  his  hand  caught  at  the 
chair  nearest  to  him,  and  he  dropped  into  it  heavily. 

"  I  don't  understand  you,"  he  said,  after  a  moment  of 
silence,  looking  about  the  room  unsteadily  while  he  spoke. 

"  You  do,"  said  my  mistress.  "  Your  tongue  lies,  but 
your  face  speaks  the  truth." 

He  called  back  his  courage  and  audacity  by  a  despe- 
rate effort,  and  started  up  from  the  chair  again  with  an 
oath. 

The  instant  before  this  happened,  I  thought  I  heard 
the  sound  of  a  rustling  dress  in  the  passage  outside,  as  if 
one  of  the  women  servants  was  stealing  up  to  listen  out- 
side the  door.  I  should  have  gone  at  once  to  see  wheth- 
er this  was  the  case  or  not,  but  my  master  stopped  me 
just  after  he  had  risen  from  the  chair. 

"  Get  the  bed  made  in  the  Red  Room,  and  light  a  tire 
there  directly,"  he  said,  with  his  fiercest  look  and  in  his 
roughest  tones.  "  When  I  ring  the  bell,  bring  me  a  ket- 
tle of  boiling  water  and  a  bottle  of  brandy.  As  for 
you,"  he  continued,  turning  toward  Mr.  Meeke,  who  still 
sat  pale  and  speechless  with  his  fiddle  hugged  up  in  his 
arms,  "  leave  the  house,  or  you  won't  find  your  cloth  any 
protection  to  you." 

At  this  insult  the  blood  flew  into  my  mistress's  face. 
Before  she  could  say  any  thing,  Mr.  James  Smith  raised 
his  voice  loud  enough  to  drown  hers. 

''I  won't  hear  another  word  from  you,"  he  cried  out, 
brutally.  "  Y^ou  have  been  talking  like  a  mad  woman, 
and  you  look  like  a  mad  woman.  You  are  out  of  your 
senses.  As  sure  as  you  live,  I'll  have  you  examined  by 
the  doctors  to-morrow.  Why  the  devil  do  you  stand 


360  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

there,  you  scoundrel  ?"  he  roared,  wheeling  round  on  his 
heel  to  me.  "  Why  don't  you  obey  my  orders  ?" 

I  looked  at  my  mistress.  If  she  had  directed  me  to 
knock  Mr.  James  Smith  down,  big  as  he  was,  I  think  at 
that  moment  I  could  have  done  it. 

"  Do  as  he  tells  you,  William,"  she  said,  squeezing  one 
of  her  hands  firmly  over  her  bosom,  as  if  she  was  trying 
to  keep  down  the  rising  indignation  in  that  way.  "This 
is  the  last  order  of  his  giving  that  I  shall  ask  you  to 
obey." 

"  Do  you  threaten  me,  you  mad — 

He  finished  the  question  by  a  word  I  shall  not  re- 
peat. 

"  I  tell  you,"  she  answered,  in  clear,  ringing,  resolute 
tones,  "  that  you  have  outraged  me  past  all  forgiveness 
and  all  endurance,  and  that  you  shall  never  insult  me 
again  as  you  have  insulted  me  to-night." 

After  saying  those  words  she  fixed  one  steady  look  on 
him,  then  turned  away  and  walked  slowly  to  the  door. 

A  minute  previously  Mr.  Meeke  had  summoned  cour- 
age enough  to  get  up  and  leave  the  room  quietly.  I  no- 
ticed him  walking  demurely  away,  close  to  the  wall,  with 
his  fiddle  held  under  one  tail  of  his  long  frock-coat,  as  if 
he  was  afraid  that  the  savage  passions  of  Mr.  James 
Smith  might  be  wreaked  on  that  unoffending  instrument. 
He  got  to  the  door  before  my  mistress.  As  he  softly 
pulled  it  open,  I  saw  him  start,  and  the  rustling  of  the 
gowrn  caught  my  ear  again  from  the  outside. 

My  mistress  followed  him  into  the  passage,  turning, 
however,  in  the  opposite  direction  to  that  taken  by  the 
little  parson,  in  order  to  reach  the  staircase  that  led  to 
her  own  room.  I  went  out  next,  leaving  Mr.  James 
Smith  alone. 

I  overtook  Mr.  Meeke  in  the  hall,  and  opened  the  door 
for  him, 


THE  QUEEN*  OF  HEARTS.  361 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,  sir,"  I  said,  "  but  did  you  come 
upon  any  body  listening  outside  the  music-room  when 
you  left  it  just  now  V 

"  Yes,  William,"  said  Mr.  Meeke,  in  a  faint  voice,  "  I 
think  it  was  Josephine ;  but  I  was  so  dreadfully  agitated 
that  I  can't  be  quite  certain  about  it." 

Had  she  surprised  our  secret  ?  That  was  the  question 
I  asked  myself  as  I  went  away  to  light  the  fire  in  the 
Red  Room.  Calling  to  mind  the  exact  time  at  which  I 
had  first  detected  the  rustling  outside  the  door,  I  came 
to  the  conclusion  that  she  had  only  heard  the  last  part 
of  the  quarrel  between  my  mistress  and  her  rascal  of  a 
husband.  Those  bold  words  about  the  "new  wife"  had 
been  assuredly  spoken  before  I  heard  Josephine  stealing 
up'  to  the  door. 

As  soon  as  the  fire  was  alight  and  the  bed  made,  I 
went  back  to  the  music-room  to  announce  that  my  orders 
had  been  obeyed.  Mr.  James  Smith  was  walking  up  and 
down  in  a  perturbed  way,  still  keeping  his  hat  on.  He 
followed  me  to  the  Red  Room  without  saying  a  word. 

Ten  minutes  later  he  rang  for  the  kettle  and  the  bottle 
of  brandy.  When  I  took  them  in  I  found  him  unpack- 
ing a  small  carpet  bag,  which  was  the  only  luggage  he 
had  brought  with  him.  He  still  kept  silence,  and  did 
not  appear  to  take  any  notice  of  me.  I  left  him  imme- 
diately without  our  having  so  much  as  exchanged  a  sin- 
gle word. 

So  far  as  I  could  tell,  the  night  passed  quietly. 

The  next  morning  I  heard  that  my  mistress  was  suffer- 
ing so  severely  from  a  nervous  attack  that  she  was  una- 
ble to  rise  from  her  bed.  It  was  no  surprise  to  me  to  be 
told  that,  knowing  as  I  did  what  she  had  gone  through 
the  night  before. 

About  nine  o'clock  I  went  with  the  hot  water  to  the 
Red  Room.  After  knocking  twice  I  tried  the  door, 


362  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

and,  finding  it  not  locked,  went  in  with  the  jug  in  my 
hand. 

I  looked  at  the  bed — I  looked  all  round  the  room. 
Not  a  sign  of  Mr.  James  Smith  was  to  be  seen  any 
where. 

Judging  by  appearances,  the  bed  had  certainly  been 
occupied.  Thrown  across  the  counterpane  lay  the  night- 
gown he  had  worn.  I  took  it  up  and  saw  some  spots  on 
it.  I  looked  at  them  a  little  closer.  They  were  spots 
of  blood. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE  first  amazement  and  alarm  produced  by  this  dis- 
covery deprived  me  of  my  presence  of  mind.  Without 
stopping  to  think  what  I  ought  to  do  first,  I  ran  back  to 
the  servants'  hall,  calling  out  that  something  had  happen- 
ed to  my  master. 

All  the  household  hurried  directly  into  the  Red  Room, 
Josephine  among  the  rest.  I  was  first  brought  to  my 
senses,  as  it  were,  by  observing  the  strange  expression 
of  her  countenance  when  she  saw  the  bed-gown  and  the 
empty  room.  All  the  other  servants  were  bewildered 
and  frightened.  She  alone,  after  giving  a  little  start,  re- 
covered herself  directly.  A  look  of  devilish  satisfaction 
broke  out  on  her  face,  and  she  left  the  room  quickly  and 
quietly,  without  exchanging  a  word  with  any  of  us.  I 
saw  this,  and  it  aroused  my  suspicions.  There  is  no  need 
to  mention  what  they  were,  for,  as  events  soon  showed, 
they  were  entirely  wide  of  the  mark. 

Having  come  to  myself  a  little,  I  sent  them  all  out  of 
the  room  except  the  coachman.  We  two  then  examined 
the  place. 

The  Red  Room  was  usually  occupied  by  visitors.     It 


THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS.  363 

was  on  the  ground  floor,  and  looked  out  into  the  garden. 
We  found  the  window-shutters,  which  I  had  barred  over- 
night, open,  but  the  window  itself  was  down.  The  tire 
had  been  out  long  enough  for  the  grate  to  be  quite  cold. 
Half  the  bottle  of  brandy  had  been  drunk.  The  carpet 
bag  Avas  gone.  There  were  no  marks  of  violence  or 
struggling  any  where  about  the  bed  or  the  room.  We 
examined  every  corner  carefully,  but  made  no  other  dis- 
coveries than  these. 

When  I  returned  to  the  servants'  hall,  bad  news  of  my 
mistress  was  awaiting  me  there.  The  unusual  noise  and 
confusion  in  the  house  had  reached  her  ears,  and  she  had 
been  told  what  had  happened  without  sufficient  caution 
being  exercised  in  preparing  her  to  hear  it.  In  her 
weak,  nervous  state,  the  shock  of  the  intelligence  had 
quite  prostrated  her.  She  had  fallen  into  a  swoon,  and 
had  been  brought  back  to  her  senses  with  the  greatest 
difficulty.  As  to  giving  me  or  any  body  else  directions 
what  to  do  under  the  embarrassing  circumstances  which 
had  now  occurred,  she  was  totally  incapable  of  the  effort. 

I  waited  till  the  middle  of  the  day,  in  the  hope  that 
she  might  get  strong  enough  to  give  her  orders ;  but  no 
message  came  from  her.  At  last  I  resolved  to  send  and 
ask  her  what  she  thought  it  best  to  do.  Josephine  was 
the  proper  person  to  go  on  this  errand ;  but  when  I 
asked  for  Josephine,  she  was  nowhere  to  be  found. 
The  housemaid,  Avho  had  searched  for  her  ineffectually, 
brought  word  that  her  bonnet  and  shawl  were  not  hang- 
ing in  their  usual  places.  The  parlor-maid,  who  had 
been  in  attendance  in  my  mistress's  room,  came  down 
while  we  were  all  aghast  at  this  new  disappearance.  She 
could  only  tell  us  that  Josephine  had  begged  her  to  do 
lady's-maid's  duty  that  morning,  as  she  was  not  well. 
Xot  well !  And  the  first  result  of  her  illness  appeared 

to  be  that  she  had  left  the  house ! 

16* 


364  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

I  cautioned  the  servants  on  no  account  to  mention  this 
circumstance  to  my  mistress,  and  then  went  up  stairs 
myself  to  knock  at  her  door.  My  object  was  to  ask  if  I 
might  count  on  her  approval  if  I  wrote  in  her  name  to 
the  lawyer  in  London,  and  if  I  afterward  went  and  gave 
information  of  what  had  occurred  to  the  nearest  justice 
of  the  peace.  I  might  have  sent  to  make  this  inquiry 
through  one  of  the  female  servants ;  but  by  this  time, 
though  not  naturally  suspicious,  I  had  got  to  distrust 
every  body  in  the  house,  whether  they  deserved  it  or  not. 

So  I  asked  the  question  myself,  standing  outside  the 
door.  My  mistress  thanked  me  in  a  faint  voice,  and 
begged  me  to  do  what  I  had  proposed  immediately. 

I  went  into  my  own  bedroom  and  wrote  to  the  lawyer, 
merely  telling  him  that  Mr.  James  Smith  had  appeared 
unexpectedly  at  the  Hall,  and  that  events  had  occurred 
in  consequence  which  required  his  immediate  presence. 
I  made  the  letter  up  like  a  parcel,  and  sent  the  coachman 
with  it  to  catch  the  mail  on  its  way  through  to  London. 

The  next  thing  was  to  go  to  the  justice  of  the  peace. 
The  nearest  lived  about  five  miles  off,  and  was  well  ac- 
quainted Avith  my  mistress.  He  was  an  old  bachelor, 
and  he  kept  house  with  his  brother,  who  was  a  widower. 
The  two  Avere  much  respected  and  beloved  in  the  county, 
being  kind,  unaffected  gentlemen,  who  did  a  great  deal 
of  good  among  the  poor.  The  justice  was  Mr.  Robert 
Nicholson,  and  his  brother,  the  widower,  was  Mr.  Philip. 

I  had  got  my  hat  on,  and  was  asking  the  groom  which 
horse  I  had  better  take,  when  an  open  carriage  drove  up 
to  the  house.  It  contained  Mr.  Philip  Nicholson  and 
two  persons  in  plain  clothes,  not  exactly  servants  and 
not  exactly  gentlemen,  as  far  as  I  could  judge.  Mr. 
Philip  looked  at  me,  when  I  touched  my  hat  to  him,  in  a 
very  grave,  downcast  way,  and  asked  for  my  mistress. 
I  told  him  she  was  ill  in  bed.  He  shook  his  head  at 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  365 

hearing  that,  and  said  he  wished  to  speak  to  me  in  pri- 
vate. I  showed  him  into  the  library.  One  of  the  men 
in  plain  clothes  followed  us,  and  sat  in  the  hall.  The 
other  waited  with  the  carriage. 

"I  was  just  goii.-g  out,  sir,"  I  said,  as  I  set  a  chair  for 
him,  "to  speak  to  Mr.  Robert  Nicholson  about  a  very 
extraordinary  circumstance — 

"  I  know  what  you  refer  to,"  said  Mr.  Philip,  cutting 
me  short  rather  abruptly ;  "  and  I  must  beg,  for  reasons 
which  will  presently  appear,  that  you  will  make  no  state- 
ment of  any  sort  to  me  until  you  have  first  heard  what  I 
have  to  say.  I  am  here  on  a  very  serious  and  a  very 
shocking  errand,  which  deeply  concerns  your  mistress 
and  you." 

His  face  suggested  something  worse  than  his  words 
expressed.  My  heart  began  to  beat  fast,  and  I  felt  that 
I  was  turning  pale. 

"  Your  master,  Mr.  James  Smith,"  he  went  on,  "  came 
here  unexpectedly  yesterday  evening,  and  slept  in  this 
house  last  night.  Before  he  retired  to  rest,  he  and  your 
mistress  had  high  words  together,  which  ended,  I  am 
sorry  to  hear,  in  a  threat  of  a  serious  nature  addressed 
by  Mrs.  James  Smith  to  her  husband.  They  slept  in 
separate  rooms.  This  morning  you  went  into  your  mas- 
ter's room  and  saw  no  sign  of  him  there.  You  only 
found  his  night-gown  on  the  bed,  spotted  with  blood." 

"  Yes,  sir,"  I  said,  in  a^  steady  a  voice  as  I  could  com- 
mand. "  Quite  true." 

"  I  am  not  examining  you,"  said  Mr.  Philip.  "  I  am 
only  making  a  certain  statement,  the  truth  of  which  you 
can  admit  or  deny  before  my  brother." 

"  Before  your  brother,  sir !"  I  repeated.  "  Am  I  sus- 
pected of  any  thing  wrong  ?" 

"  There  is  a  suspicion  that  MA  James  Smith  has  been 
murdered,"  was  the  answer  I  received  to  that  question. 


366  THE    Ql'EEX    OF    HEARTS. 

My  flesh  began  to  creep  all  over  from  head  to  foot. 

"I  am  shocked  —  I  am  horrified  to  say,"  Mr.  Philip 
Avent  on,  "  that  the  suspicion  affects  your  mistress  in  the 
first  place,  and  you  in  the  second." 

I  shall  not  attempt  to  describe  what  I  felt  when  he 
said  that.  Xo  words  of  mine,  no  words  of  any  body's, 
could  give  an  idea  of  it.  What  other  men  would  have 
done  in  my  situation  I  don't  know.  I  stood  before  Mr. 
Philip,  staring  straight  at  him,  without  speaking,  without 
moving,  almost  without  breathing.  If  he  or  any  other 
man  had  struck  me  at  that  moment,  I  do  not  believe  I 
should  have  felt  the  blow. 

Both  my  brother  and  myself,"  said  Mr.  Philip,  "  have 
such  unfeigned  respect  for  your  mistress,  such  sympathy 
for  her  under  these  frightful  circumstances,  and  such  an 
implicit  belief  in  her  capability  of  proving  her  innocence, 
that  we  are  desirous  of  sparing  her  in  this  dreadful 
emergency  as  much  as  possible.  For  those  reasons,  I 
have  undertaken  to  come  here  with  the  persons  appoint- 
ed to  execute  my  brother's  warrant — " 

"  Warrant,  sir !"  I  said,  getting  command  of  my  voice 
as  he  pronounced  that  word — "  a  warrant  against  my 
mistress !" 

"Against  her  and  against  you,"  said  Mr.  Philip.  "The 
suspicious  circumstances  have  been  sworn  to  by  a  com- 
petent witness,  who  has  declared  on  oath  that  your  mis- 
tress is  guilty,  and  that  you  are  an  accomplice." 

"  What  witness,  sir  ?" 

"Your  mistress's  quadroon  maid,  who  came  to  my 
brother  this  morning,  and  who  has  made  her  deposition 
in  due  form." 

"And  who  is  as  false  as  hell,"  I  cried  out  passionately, 
"  in  every  word  she  says  against  my  mistress  and  against 
me." 

"I  hope — no,  I  will  go  farther,  and  say  I  believe  she 


THE    tjUEEN*    OF    HEARTS.  367 

is  false,"  said  Mr.  Philip.  "But  her  perjury  must  be 
proved,  and  the  necessary  examination  must  take  place. 
My  carriage  is  going  back  to  my  brother's,  and  you  will 
go  ill  it,  in  charge  of  one  of  my  men,  Avho  has  the  Avar- 
rant  to  take  you  in  custody.  I  shall  remain  here  Avith 
the  man  Avho  is  Availing  in  the  hall ;  and,  before  any  steps 
are  taken  to  execute  the  other  Avarrant,  I  shall  send  for 
the  doctor  to  ascertain  when  your  mistress  can  be  re- 
moved." 

"Oh,  my  poor  mistress!"  I  said,  "this  Avill  be  the 
death  of  her,  sir." 

"I  Avill  take  care  that  the  shock  shall  strike  her  as 
tenderly  as  possible,"  said  Mr.  Philip.  "  I  am  here  for 
that  express  purpose.  She  has  my  deepest  sympathy 
and  respect,  and  shall  have  every  help  and  alleviation 
that  I  can  afford  her." 

The  hearing  him  say  that,  and  the  seeing  hoAV  sincere- 
ly he  meant  Avhat  he  said,  Avas  the  first  gleam  of  comfort 
in  the  dreadful  affliction  that  had  befallen  us.  I  felt 
this ;  I  felt  a  burning  anger  against  the  wretch  Avho  had 
done  her  best  to  ruin  my  mistress's  fair  name  and  mine, 
but  in  every  other  respect  I  Avas  like  a  man  Avho  had 
been  stunned,  and  Avhose  faculties  had  not  perfectly  re- 
covered from  the  shock.  Mr.  Philip  Avas  obliged  to  re- 
mind me  that  time  Avas  of  importance,  and  that  I  had 
better  give  myself  up  immediately,  on  the  merciful  terms 
Avhich  his  kindness  offered  to  me.  I  acknoAvledged  that, 
and  Avished  him  good-morning.  But  a  mist  seemed  to 
come  over  my  eyes  as  I  turned  round  to  go  aAvay — a 
mist  that  prevented  me  from  finding  my  way  to  the 
door.  Mr.  Philip  opened  it  for  me,  and  said  a  friendly 
Avord  or  two  which  T  could  hardly  hear.  The  man  Avait- 
ing  outside  took  me  to  his  companion  in  the  carriage  at 
the  door,  and  I  Avas*  driven  aAvay,  a  prisoner  for  the  first 
time  in  my  life. 


368  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

On  our  way  to  the  justice's,  what  little  thinking  facul- 
ty I  had  left  in  me  was  all  occupied  in  the  attempt  to 
trace  a  motive  for  the  inconceivable  treachery  and  false- 
hood of  which  Josephine  had  been  guilty. 

Her  words,  her  looks,  and  her  manner,  on  that  unfor- 
tunate day  when  my  mistress  so  far  forgot  herself  as  to 
strike  her,  came  back  dimly  to  my  memory,  and  led  to 
the  inference  that  part  of  the  motive,  at  least,  of  which  I 
was  in  search,  might  be  referred  to  what  had  happened 
on  that  occasion.  But  was  this  the  only  reason  for  her 
devilish  vengeance  against  my  mistress?  And,  even  if 
it  were  so,  what  fancied  injuries  had  I  done  her  ?  "Why 
should  I  be  included  in  the  false  accusation?  In  the 
dazed  state  of  my  faculties  at  that  time,  I  was  quite  in- 
capable of  seeking  the  answer  to  these  questions.  My 
mind  was  clouded  all  over,  and  I  gave  up  the  attempt  to 
clear  it  in  despair. 

I  was  brought  before  Mr.  Robert  Nicholson  that  day, 
and  the  fiend  of  a  quadroon  was  examined  in  my  pres- 
ence. The  first  sight  of  her  face,  with  its  wicked  self- 
possession,  with  its  smooth,  leering  triumph,  so  sickened 
me  that  I  turned  my  head  away  and  never  looked  at  her 
a  second  time  throughout  the  proceedings.  The  answers 
she  gave  amounted  to  a  mere  repetition  of  the  deposition 
to  which  she  had  already  sworn.  I  listened  to  her  with 
the  most  breathless  attention,  and  was  thunderstruck  at 
the  inconceivable  artfulness  with  which  she  had  mixed 
up  truth  and  falsehood  in  her  charge  against  my  mistress 
and  me. 

This  was,  in  substance,  what  she  now  stated  in  my 
presence : 

After  describing  the  manner  of  Mr.  James  Smith's  ar- 
rival at  the  Hall,  the  witness,  Josephine  Durand,  con- 
fessed that  she  had  been  led  to  listen  at  the  music-room 
door  by  hearing  angry  voices  inside,  and  she  then  de- 


THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS.  369 

scribed,  truly  enough,  the  latter  part  of  the  altercation 
between  husband  and  wife.  Fearing,  after  this,  that 
something  serious  might  happen,  she  had  kept  watch  in 
her  room,  which  was  on  the  same  floor  as  her  mistress's. 
She  had  heard  her  mistress's  door  open  softly  between 
one  and  two  in  the  morning — had  followed  her  mistress, 
who  carried  a  small  lam}),  along  the  passage  and  down 
the  stairs  into  the  hall — had  hidden  herself  in  the  porter's 
chair — had  seen  her  mistress  take  a  dagger  in  a  green 
sheath  from  a  collection  of  Eastern  curiosities  kept  in 
the  hall — had  followed  her  again,  and  seen  her  softly  en- 
ter the  lied  Room — had  heard  the  heavy  breathing  of 
Mr.  James  Smith,  which  gave  token  that  he  was  asleep — 
had  slipped  into  an  empty  room,  next  door  to  the  Red 
Room,  and  had  waited  there  about  a  quarter  of  an  hour, 
when  her  mistress  came  out  again  with  the  dagger  in 
her  hand — had  followed  her  mistress  again  into  the  hall, 
where  she  had  put  the  dagger  back  into  its  place — had 
seen  her  mistress  turn  into  a  side  passage  that  led  to  my 
room — had  heard  her  knock  at  my  door,  and  heard  me 
answer  and  open  it — had  hidden  again  in  the  porter's 
chair — had,  after  a  while,  seen  me  and  my  mistress  pass 
together  into  the  passage  that  led  to  the  Red  Room — 
had  watched  us  both  into  the  Red  Room — and  had  then, 
through  fear  of  being  discovered  and  murdered  herself, 
if  she  risked  detection  any  longer,  stolen  back  to  her 
own  room  for  the  rest  of  the  night. 

After  deposing  on  oath  to  the  truth  of  these  atrocious 
falsehoods,  and  declaring,  in  conclusion,  that  Mr.  James 
Smith  had  been  murdered  by  iny  mistress,  and  that  I  was 
an  accomplice,  the  quadroon  had  farther  asserted,  in  order 
to  show  a  motive  for  the  crime,  that  Mr.  Meeke  was  my 
mistress's  lover ;  that  he  had  been  forbidden  the  house 
by  her  husband,  and  that  he  was  found  in  the  house,  and 
alone  with  her,  on  the  evening  of  Mr.  James  Smith's  re- 


370  THK    lil'KKN     «»F    HKAKTS. 

turn.  Here  again  there  were  some  Drains  of  truth  cr.n- 
ningly  mixed  up  with  a  revolting  lie,  and  they  had  their 
effect  in  giving  to  the  falsehood  a  look  of  probability. 

I  was  cautioned  in  the  usual  manner,  and  asked  if  I 
had  any  thing  to  say. 

I  replied  that  I  was  innocent,  but  that  I  would  wait 
for  legal  assistance  before  I  defended  myself.  The  jus- 
tice remanded  me,  and  the  examination  was  over.  Three 
days  later  my  unhappy  mistress  was  subjected  to  the 
same  trial.  I  was  not  allowed  to  communicate  with  her. 
All  I  knew  was  that  the  lawyer  had  arrived  from  Lon- 
don to  help  her.  Toward  the  evening  he  was  admitted 
to  see  me.  He  shook  his  head  sorrowfully  when  I  asked 
after  my  mistress. 

"  I  am  afraid,"  he  said,  "  that  she  has  sunk  under  the 
horror  of  the  situation  in  which  that  vile  woman  has 
placed  her.  Weakened  by  her  previous  agitation,  she 
seems  to  have  given  way  under  this  last  shock,  tenderly 
and  carefully  as  Mr.  Philip  Nicholson  broke  the  bad  news 
to  her.  All  her  feelings  appeared  to  be  strangely  blunt- 
ed at  the  examination  to-day.  She  answered  the  ques- 
tions put  to  her  quite  correctly,  but,  at  the  same  time, 
quite  mechanically,  with  no  change  in  her  complexion, 
or  in,  her  tone  of  voice,  or  in  her  manner,  from  beginning 
to  end.  It  is  a  sad  thing,  William,  when  women  can  not 
get  their  natural  vent  of  weeping,  and  your  mistress  has 
not  shed  a  tear  since  she  left  Darrock  Hall." 

"  But  surely,  sir,"  I  said,  "  if  my  examination  has  not 
proved  Josephine's  perjury,  my  mistress's  examination 
must  have  exposed  it?" 

"  Nothing  will  expose  it,"  answered  the  lawyer,  "  but 
producing  Mr.  James  Smith,  or,  at  least,  legally  proving 
that  he  is  alive.  Morally  speaking,  I  have  no  doubt  that 
the  justice  before  whom  you  have  been  examined  is  as 
firmly  convinced  as  we  can  be  that  the  quadroon  has 


THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS.  371 

perjured  herself.  Morally  speaking,  he  believes  that 
those  threats  which  your  mistress  unfortunately  used  re- 
ferred (as  she  said  they  did  to-day)  to  her  intention  of 
leaving  the  Hall  early  in  the  morning,  Avith  you  for  her 
attendant,  and  coming  to  me,  if  she  had  been  well  enough 
to  travel,  to  seek  effectual  legal  protection  from  her  hus- 
band for  the  future.  Mr.  Nicholson  believes  that ;  and 
I,  who  know  more  of  the  circumstances  than  lie  does, 
believe  also  that  Mr.  James  Smith  stole  away  from  Dar- 
rock  Hall  in  the  night  under  fear  of  being  indicted  for 
bigamy.  But  if  I  can't  find  him — if  I  can't  prove  him 
to  be  alive — if  I  can't  account  for  those  spots  of  blood 
on  the  night-gown,  the  accidental  circumstances  of  the 
case  remain  unexplained — your  mistress's  rash  language, 
the  bad  terms  on  which  she  has  lived  with  her  husband, 
and  her  unlucky  disregard  of  appearances  in  keeping  up 
her  intercourse  with  Mr.  Meeke,  all  tell  dead  against  us 
— and  the  justice  has  no  alternative,  in  a  legal  point  of 
view,  but  to  remand  you  both,  as  he  has  now  done,  for 
the  production  of  farther  evidence." 

"  But  how,  then,  in  heaven's  name,  is  our  innocence  to 
be  proved,  sir  ?"  I  asked. 

"  In  the  first  place,"  said  the  lawyer,  "  by  finding  Mr. 
James  Smith;  and,  in  the  second  place,  by  persuading 
him,  when  he  is  found,  to  come  forward  and  declare 
himself." 

"  Do  you  really  believe,  sir,"  said  I,  "  that  he  would 
hesitate  to  do  that,  when  he  knows  the  horrible  charge 
to  which  his  disappearance  has  exposed  his  wife  ?  He 
is  a  heartless  villain,  I  know ;  but  surely — " 

"  I  don't  suppose,"  said  the  lawyer,  cutting  me  short, 
"  that  he  is  quite  scoundrel  enough  to  decline  coming 
lot-ward,  supposing  he  ran  no  risk  by  doing  so.  But  re- 
member that  he  has  placed  himself  in  a  position  to  be 
tried  for  bigamy,  and  that  he  believes  your  mistress  will 
put  the  law  in  force  against  him." 


372  THE    yUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

I  had  forgotten  that  circumstance.  My  heart  sank 
within  me  when  it  was  recalled  to  my  memory,  and  I 
could  say  nothing  more. 

"  It  is  a  very  serious  thing,"  the  lawyer  went  on^"  it 
is  a  downright  offense  against  the  law  of  the  land  to 
make  any  private  offer  of  a  compromise  to  this  man. 
Knowing  what  we  know,  our  duty  as  good  citizens  is  to 
give  such  information  as  may  hring  him  to  trial.  I  tell 
yon  plainly  that,  if  I  did  not  stand  toward  your  mistress 
in  the  position  of  a  relation  as  well  as  a  legal  adviser,  I 
should  think  twice  about  running  the  risk — the  very  se- 
rious risk — on  which  I  am  now  about  to  venture  for  her 
sake.  As  it  is,  I  have  taken  the  right  measures  to  assure 
Mr.  James  Smith  that  he  will  not  be  treated  according 
to  his  deserts.  When  he  knows  what  the  circumstances 
are,  he  will  trust  us — supposing  always  that  we  can  find 
him.  The  search  about  this  neighborhood  has  been  quite 
useless.  I  have  sent  private  instructions  by  to-day's 
post  to  Mr.  Dark  in  London,  and  with  them  a  carefully- 
worded  form  of  advertisement  for  the  public  newspapers. 
You  may  rest  assured  that  every  human  iiieans  of  tracing 
him  will  be  tried  forthwith.  In  the  mean  time,  I  have 
an  important  question  to  put  to  you  about  Josephine. 
She  may  know  more  than  we  think  she  does ;  she  may 
have  surprised  the  secret  of  the  second  marriage,  and 
may  be  keeping  it  in  reserve  to  use  against  us.  If  this 
should  turn  out  to  be  the  case,  I  shall  want  some  other 
chance  against  her  besides  the  chance  of  indicting  her  for 
perjury.  As  to  her  motive  now  for  making  this  horrible 
accusation,  what  can  you  tell  me  about  that,  William  V" 

"  Her  motive  against  me,  sir  ?" 

"No,  no,  not  against  you.  I  can  see  plainly  enough 
that  she  accuses  you  because  it  is  necessary  to  do  so  10 
add  to  the  probability  of  her  story,  which,  of  course,  as- 
sumes that  you  helped  your  mistress  to  dispose  of  the 


THE    O.UEEX    OF    I1EAKTS.  37:3 

•iead  body.  You  are  coolly  sacrificed  to  some  devilish 
vengeance  against  her  mistress.  Let  us  get  at  that  first. 
Has  there  ever  been  a  quarrel  between  them  ?" 

I  told  him  of  the  quarrel,  and  of  how  Josephine  had 
looked  and  talked  when  she  showed  me  her  cheek. 

"  Yes,"  he  said,  "  that  is  a  strong  motive  for  revenge 
with  a  naturally  pitiless,  vindictive  woman.  But  is  that 
all  ?  Had  your  mistress  any  hold  over  her  ?  Is  there 
any  self-interest  mixed  up  along  with  this  motive  of  ven- 
geance ?  Think  a  little,  William.  Has  any  thing  ever 
happened  in  the  house  to  compromise  this  woman,  or  to 
make  her  fancy  herself  compromised  ?" 

The  remembrance  of  my  mistress's  lost  trinkets  and 
handkerchiefs,  which  later  and  greater  troubles  had  put 
out  of  my  mind,  flashed  back  into  rny  memory  while  he 
spoke.  I  told  him  immediately  of  the  alarm  in  the  house 
when'  the  loss  was  discovered. 

"  Did  your  mistress  suspect  Josephine  and  question 
her  ?"  he  asked,  eagerly. 

"  No,  sir,"  I  replied.  "  Before  she  could  say  a  word, 
Josephine  impudently  asked  who  she  suspected,  and 
boldly  offered  her  own  boxes  to  be  searched." 

The  lawyer's  face  turned  red  as  scarlet.  He  jumped 
out  of  his  chair,  and  hit  me  such  a  smack  on  the  shoulder 
that  I  thought  he  had  gone  mad. 

"  By  Jupiter !"  he  cried  out,  "  we  have  got  the  whip- 
hand  of  that  she-devil  at  last." 

I  looked  at  him  in  astonishment. 

"  Why,  man  alive,"  he  said,  "  don't  you  see  how  it  is  : 
Josephine's  the  thief!  I  am  as  sure  of  it  as  that  you 
and  I  are  talking  together.  This  vile  accusation  against 
your  mistress  answers  another  purpose  besides  the  vin- 
dictive one — it  is  the  very  best  screen  that  the  wretch 
could  possibly  set  up  to  hide  herself  from  detection.  It 
has  stopped  your  mistress  and  you  from  moving  in  the 


374  THE    (^UKEX    OF    UKAKTS. 

matter ;  it  exhibits  her  in  the  false  character  of  ar.  hen- 
est  witness  against  a  couple  of  criminals ;  it  gives  her 
time  to  dispose  of  the  goods,  or  to  hide  them,  or  to  do 
any  thing  she  likes  with  them.  Stop !  let  me  be  quite 
sure  that  I  know  what  the  lost  things  are.  A  pair  of 
bracelets,  three  rings,  And  a  lot  of  lace  pocket-handker- 
chiefs— is  that  what  you  said  ?" 

"  Yes,  sir." 

"  Your  mistress  will  describe  them  particularly,  and  I 
will  take  the  right  steps  the  first  tiling  to-morrow  morn- 
ing. Good-evening,  William,  and  keep  up  your  spirits. 
It  sha'n't  be  my  fault  if  you  don't  soon  see  the  quadroon 
in  the  right  place  for  her — at  the  prisoner's  bar." 

With  that  farewell  he  went  out. 

The  days  passed,  and  I  did  not  see  him  again  until 
the  period  of  my  remand  had  expired.  On  this  occa- 
sion, when  I  once  more  appeared  before  the  justice,  my 
mistress  appeared  with  me.  The  first  sight  of  her  abso- 
lutely startled  me,  she  was  so  sadly  altered.  Her  face 
looked  so  pinched  and  thin  that  it  Avas  like  the  face  of 
an  old  woman.  The  dull,  vacant  resignation  of  her  ex- 
pression was  something  shocking  to  see.  It  changed  a 
little  when  her  eyes  first  turned  heavily  toward  me.  and 
she  whispered,  with  a  faint  smile,  "I  am  sorry  for  ;/<»', 
William — I  am  very,  very  sorry  for  you."  But  as  soon 
as  she  had  said  those  words  the  blank  look  returned,  and 
she  sat  with  her  head  drooping  forward,  quiet,  and  inat- 
tentive, and  hopeless — so  changed  a  being  that  her  old- 
est friends  would  hardly  have  known  her. 

Our  examination  was  a  mere  formality.  There  was 
no  additional  evidence  either  for  or  against  us,  and  we 
were  remanded  again  for  another  week. 

I  asked  the  lawyer,  privately,  if  any  chance  had  offer- 
ed itself  of  tracing  Mr.  James  Smith.  He  looked  mys- 
terious, and  only  said  in  answer,  "  Hope  for  the  best." 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  375 

I  inquired  next  if  any  progress  had  been  made  toward 
fixing  the  guilt  of  the  robbery  on  Josephine. 

"  I  never  boast,"  he  replied.  "  But,  cunning  as  she 
is,  I  should  not  be  surprised  if  Mr.  Dark  and  I,  together, 
turned  out  to  be  more  than  a  match  for  her." 

Mr.  Dark !  There  was  something  in  the  mere  men- 
tion of  his  name  that  gave  me  confidence  in  the  future. 
If  I  could  only  have  got  my  poor  mistress's  sad,  dazed 
face  out  of  my  mind,  I  should  not  have  had  much  de- 
pression of  spirits  to  complain  of  during  the  interval 
of  time  that  elapsed  between  the  second  examination  and 
the  third. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

ON  the  third  appearance  of  my  mistress  and  myself 
before  the  justice,  I  noticed  some  faces  in  the  room 
which  I  had  not  seen  there  before.  Greatly  to  my  as- 
tonishment—  for  the  previous  examinations  had  been 
conducted  as  privately  as  possible — I  remarked  the  pres- 
ence of  two  of  the  servants  from  the  Hall,  and  of  three 
or  four  of  the  tenants  on  the  Darrock  estate,  who  lived 
nearest  to  the  house.  They  all  sat  together  on  one  side 
of  the  justice-room.  Opposite  to  them,  and  close  at  the 
side  of  a  door,  stood  my  old  acquaintance,  Mr.  Dark, 
with  his  big  snuff-box,  his  jolly  face,  and  his  winking 
eye.  He  nodded  to  me,  when  I  looked  at  him,  as  jaunti- 
ly as  if  we  were  meeting  at  a  party  of  pleasure.  The 
quadroon  woman,  who  had  been  summoned  to  the  ex- 
amination, had  a  chair  placed  opposite  to  the  witness- 
box,  and  in  a  line  with  the  seat  occupied  by  my  poor 
mistress,  whose  looks,  as  I  was  grieved  to  see,  were  not 
altered  for  the  better.  The  lawyer  from  London  was 
with  her,  and  I  stood  behind  her  chair. 

We  were  all  quietly  disposed  in  the  room  in  this  way, 


370  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

when  the  justice,  Mr.  Robert  Nicholson,  came  in  with 
his  brother.  It  might  have  been  only  fancy,  but  I 
thought  I  could  see  in  both  their  faces  that  something 
remarkable  had  happened  since  we  had  met  at  the  last 
examination. 

The  deposition  of  Josephine  Durand  was  read  over  by 
the  clerk,  and  she  was  asked  if  she  had  any  thing  to  add 
to  it.  She  replied  in  the  negative.  The  justice  then  ap- 
pealed to  my  mistress's  relation,  the  lawyer,  to  know  if 
he  could  produce  any  evidence  relating  to  the  charge 
against  his  clients. 

"I  have  evidence,"  answered  the  lawyer,  getting  brisk- 
ly on  his  legs,  "  which  I  believe,  sir,  will  justify  me  in 
asking  for  their  discharge." 

"Where  are  your  witnesses?"  inquired  the  justice, 
looking  hard  at  Josephine  while  he  spoke. 

"  One  of  them  is  in  waiting,  your  worship,"  said  Mr. 
Dark,  opening  the  door  near  which  he  was  standing. 

He  Avent  out  of  the  room,  remained  away  about  a  min- 
ute, and  returned  with  his  witness  at  his  heels. 

My  heart  gave  a  bound  as  if  it  would  jump  out  of  my 
body.  There,  with  his  long  hair  cut  short,  and  his  bushy 
whiskers  shaved  off — there,  in  his  own  proper  person, 
safe  and  sound  as  ever,  was  Mr.  James  Smith  ! 

The  quadroon's  iron  nature  resisted  the  shock  of  his 
unexpected  presence  on  the  scene  with  a  steadiness  that 
was  nothing  short  of  marvelous.  Her  thin  lips  closed 
together  convulsively,  and  there  was  a  slight  movement 
in  the  muscles  of  her  throat.  But  not  a  word,  not  a  sign 
betrayed  her.  Even  the  yellow  tinge  of  her  complexion 
remained  unchanged. 

"It  is  not  necessary,  sir,  that  I  should  waste  time  and 
words  in  referring  to  the  wicked  and  preposterous  charge 
against  my  clients,"  said  the  lawyer,  addressing  Mr.  Rob- 
ert Xicholson.  "  The  one  sufficient  justification  for  dis- 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  S^ 

charging  them  immediately  is  before  you  at  this  moment 
in  the  person  of  that  gentleman.  There,  sir,  stands  the 
murdered  Mr.  James  Smith,  of  Darrock  Hall,  alive  and 
well,  to  answer  for  himself." 

"  That  is  not  the  man !"  cried  Josephine,  her  shrill 
voice  just  as  high,  clear,  and  steady  as  ever.  "I  de- 
nounce that  man  as  an  impostor.  Of  my  own  knowl- 
edge I  deny  that  he  is  Mr.  James  Smith." 

"  No  doubt  you  do,"  said  the  lawyer ;  "  but  we  will 
prove  his  identity  for  all  that." 

The  first  witness  called  was  Mr.  Philip  Nicholson.  He 
could  swear  that  he  had  seen  Mr.  James  Smith,  and 
spoken  to  him  at  least  a  dozen  times.  The  person  now 
before  him  was  Mr.  James  Smith,  altered  as  to  personal 
appearance  by  having  his  hair  cut  short  and  his  whiskers 
shaved  off,  but  still  unmistakably  the  man  he  assumed 
to  be. 

"  Conspiracy !"  interrupted  the  prisoner,  hissing  the 
word  out  viciously  between  her  teeth. 

"  If  you  are  not  silent,"  said  Mr.  Robert  Nicholson, 
"  you  will  be  removed  from  the  room.  It  will  sooner 
meet  the  ends  of  justice."  he  went  on,  addressing  the 
lawyer,  "  if  you  prove  the  question  of  identity  by  wit- 
nesses who  have  been  in  habits  of  daily  communication 
with  Mr.  James  Smith." 

Upon  this,  one  of  the  servants  from  the  Hall  was  placed 
in  the  box. 

The  alteration  in  his  master's  appearance  evidently 
puzzled,  the  man.  Besides  the  perplexing  change  already 
adverted  to,  there  was  also  a  change  in  Mr.  James  Smith's 
expression  and  manner.  Rascal  as  he  was,  I  must  do 
him  the  justice  to  say  that  he  looked  startled  and 
ashamed  when  he  first  caught  sight  of  his  unfortunate 
wife.  The  servant,  who  was  used  to  be  eyed  tyrannic- 
ally by  him,  and  ordered  about  roughly,  seeing  him  now 


378  THE  QUEEN*  OF  HEARTS. 

for  the  first  time  abashed  and  silent,  stammered  and  hes- 
itated on  being  asked  to  swear  to  his  identity. 

"  I  can  hardly  say  for  certain,  sir,"  said  the  man,  ad- 
dressing the  justice  in  a  bewildered  manner.  "He  is 
like  my  master,  and  yet  he  isn't.  If  he  wore  whiskers 
and  had  his  hair  long,  and  if  he  was,  saving  your  pres- 
ence, sir,  a  little  more  rough  and  ready  in  his  way,  I 
could  swear  to  him  any  where  with  a  safe  conscience." 

Fortunately  for  us,  at  this  moment  Mr.  James  Smith's 
feeling  of  uneasiness  at  the  situation  in  which  he  was 
placed  changed  to  a  feeling  of  irritation  at  being  coolly 
surveyed  and  then  stupidly  doubted  in  the  matter  of  his 
identity  by  one  of  his  own  servants. 

"  Can't  you  say  in  plain  words,  you  idiot,  whether  you 
know  me  or  whether  you  don't  ?"  he  called  out,  angrily. 

"  That's  his  voice !"  cried  the  servant,  starting  in  the 
box.  "  Whiskers  or  no  whiskers,  that's  him !" 

"If  there  is  any  difficulty,  your  worship,  about  the 
gentleman's  hair,"  said  Mr.  Dark,  coming  forward  with  a 
grin,  "  here's  a  small  parcel  which,  I  may  make  so  bold 
as  to  say,  will  remove  it."  Saying  that,  he  opened  the 
parcel,  took  some  locks  of  hair  out  of  it,  and  held  them 
up  close  to  Mr.  James  Smith's  head.  "  A  pretty  good 
match,  your  worship,"  continued  Mr.  Dark.  "  I  have  no 
doubt  the  gentleman's  head  feels  cooler  now  it's  off. 
We  can't  put  the  whiskers  on,  I'm  afraid,  but  they  match 
the  hair  ;  and  they  are  in  the  paper  (if  one  may  say  such 
a  thing  of  whiskers)  to  speak  for  themselves." 

"Lies!  lies!  lies!"  screamed  Josephine,  losing  her 
wicked  self-control  at  this  stage  of  the  proceedings. 

The  justice  made  a  sign  to  two  of  the  constables  pres- 
ent as  she  burst  out  with  those  exclamations,  and  the 
men  removed  her  to  an  adjoining  room. 

The  second  servant  from  the  Hall  was  then  put  in  the 
box,  and  was  followed  by  one  of  the  tenants.  After 


THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS.  379 

what  they  had  heard  and  seen,  neither  of  these  men  had 
any  hesitation  in  swearing  positively  to  their  master's 
identity. 

"  It  is  quite  unnecessary,"  said  the  justice,  as  soon  as 
the  box  was  empty  again,  "to  examine  any  more  wit- 
nesses as  to  the  question  of  identity.  All  the  legal  form- 
alities are  accomplished,  and  the  charge  against  the  pris- 
oners falls  to  the  ground.  I  have  great  pleasure  in  or- 
dering the  immediate  discharge  of  both  the  accused  per- 
sons, and  in  declaring  from  this  place  that  they  leave  the 
court  without  the  slightest  stain  on  their  characters." 

He  bowed  low  to  my  mistress  as  he  said  that,  paused 
a  moment,  and  then  looked  inquiringly  at  Mr.  James 
Smith. 

"I  have  hitherto  abstained  from  making  any  remark 
unconnected  with  the  immediate  matter  in  hand,"  he 
went  on.  "  But,  now  that  my  duty  is  done,  I  can  not 
leave  this  chair  without  expressing  my  strong  sense  of 
disapprobation  of  the  conduct  of  Mr.  James  Smith — con- 
duct which,  whatever  may  be  the  motives  that  occasion- 
ed it,  has  given  a  false  color  of  probability  to  a  most 
horrible  charge  against  a  lady  of  unspotted  reputation, 
and  against  a  person  in  a  lower  rank  of  life  whose  good 
character  ought  not  to  have  been  imperiled  even  for  a 
moment.  Mr.  Smith  may  or  may  not  choose  to  explain 
his  mysterious  disappearance  from  Darrock  Hall,  and  the 
equally  unaccountable  change  which  he  has  chosen  to 
make  in  his  personal  appearance.  There  is  no  legal 
charge  against  him ;  but,  speaking  morally,  I  should  be 
unworthy  of  the  place  I  hold  if  I  hesitated  to  declare  my 
present  conviction  that  his  conduct  has  been  deceitful, 
inconsiderate,  and  unfeeling  in  the  highest  degree." 

To  this  sharp  reprimand  Mr.  James  Smith  (evidently 
tutored  beforehand  as  to  what  he  was  to  say)  replied 
that,  in  attending  before  the  justice,  he  wished  to  per- 

17 


380  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

form  a  plain  duty  and  to  keep  himself  strictly  within  the 
letter  of  the  law.  He  apprehended  that  the  only  legal 
obligation  laid  on  him  was  to  attend  in  that  court  to 
declare  himself,  and  to  enable  competent  witnesses  to 
prove  his  identity.  This  duty  accomplished,  he  had 
merely  to  add  that  he  preferred  submitting  to  a  repri- 
mand from  the  bench  to  entering  into  explanations 
which  would  involve  the  disclosure  of  domestic  circum- 
stances of  a  very  unhappy  nature.  After  that  brief  re- 
ply he  had  nothing  farther  to  say,  and  he  would  respect- 
fully request  the  justice's  permission  to  withdraw. 

The  permission  was  accorded.  As  he  crossed  the 
room  he  stopped  near  his  wife,  and  said  confusedly,  in  a 
very  low  tone, 

"  I  have  done  you  many  injuries,  but  I  never  intended 
this.  I  am  sorry  for  it.  Have  you  any  thing  to  say  to 
me  before  I  go  ?" 

My  mistress  shuddered  and  hid  her  face.  He  waited 
a  moment,  and,  finding  that  she  did  not  answer  him, 
bowed  his  head  politely  and  went  out.  I  did  not  know 
it  then,  but  I  had  seen  him  for  the  last  time. 

After  he  had  gone,  the  lawyer,  addressing  Mr.  Robert 
Nicholson,  said  that  he  had  an  application  to  make  in 
reference  to  the  woman  Josephine  Durand. 

At  the  mention  of  that  name  my  mistress  hurriedly 
whispered  a  few  words  into  her  relation's  ear.  He  look- 
ed toward  Mr.  Philip  Nicholson,  who  immediately  ad- 
vanced, offered  his  arm  to  my  mistress,  and  led  her  out. 
I  was  about  to  follow,  when  Mr.  Dark  stopped  me,  and 
begged  that  I  would  wait  a  few  minutes  longer,  in  order 
to  give  myself  the  pleasure  of  seeing  "  the  end  of  the 
case." 

In  the  mean  time  the  justice  had  pronounced  the  nec- 
essary order  to  have  the  quadroon  brought  back.  She 
came  in,  as  bold  and  confident  as  ever.  Mr.  Robert 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  381 

Nicholson  looked  away  from  her  in  disgust,  and  said  to 
the  lawyer, 

"  Your  application  is  to  have  her  committed  for  per- 
jury, of  course?" 

"  For  perjury  ?"  said  Josephine,  with  her  wicked 
smile.  "Very  good.  I  shall  explain  some  little  matters 
that  I  have  not  explained  before.  You  think  I  am  quite 
at  your  mercy  now  ?  Bah !  I  shall  make  myself  a  thorn 
in  your  sides  yet." 

"  She  has  got  scent  of  the  second  marriage,"  whisper- 
ed Mr.  Dark  to  me. 

There  could  be  no  doubt  of  it.  She  had  evidently  been 
listening  at  the  door  on  the  night  when  my  master  came 
back  longer  than  I  had  supposed.  She  must  have  heard 
those  words  about  "the  new  wife" — she  might  even 
have  seen  the  effect  of  them  on  Mr.  James  Smith. 

"  We  do  not  at  present  propose  to  charge  Josephine 
Durand  with  perjury,"  said  the  lawyer,  "but  with  an- 
other offense,  for  which  it  is  important  to  try  her  imme- 
diately, in  order  to  effect  the  restoration  of  property  that 
has  been  stolen.  I  charge  her  with  stealing  from  her 
mistress,  while  in  her  service  at  Darrock  Hall,  a  pair  of 
bracelets,  three  rings,  and  a  dozen  and  a  half  of  lace 
pocket-handkerchiefs.  The  articles  in  question  were 
taken  this  morning  from  between  the  mattresses  of  her 
bed ;  and  a  letter  was  found  in  the  same  place  which 
clearly  proves  that  she  had  represented  the  property  as 
belonging  to  herself,  and  that  she  had  tried  to  dispose  of 
it  to  a  purchaser  in  London."  While  he  was  speaking, 
Mr.  Dark  produced  the  jewelry,  the  handkerchiefs,  and 
the  letter,  and  laid  them  before  the  justice. 

Even  Josephine's  extraordinary  powers  of  self-control 
now  gave  way  at  last.  At  the  first  words  of  the  unex- 
pected charge  against  her  she  struck  her  hands  together 
violently,  gnashed  her  sharp  white  teeth,  and  burst  out 


382  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEA1MS. 

with  a  torrent  of  fierce-sounding  words  in  some  foreign 
language,  the  meaning  of  which  I  did  not  understand 
then,  and  can  not  explain  now. 

"  I  think  that's  checkmate  for  marmzelle,"  whispered 
Mr.  Dark,  with  his  invariable  wink.  u  Suppose  you  go 
back  to  the  Hall,  now,  William,  and  draw  a  jug  of  that 
very  remarkable  old  ale  of  yours  ?  I'll  be  after  you  in 
five  minutes,  as  soon  as  the  charge  is  made  out." 

I  could  hardly  realize  it  when  I  found  myself  walking 
back  to  Darrock  a  free  man  again. 

In  a  quarter  of  an  hour's  time  Mr.  Dark  joined  me,  and 
drank  to  my  health,  happiness,  and  prosperity  in  three 
separate  tumblers.  After  performing  this  ceremony,  he 
wagged  his  head  and  chuckled  with  an  appearance  of 
such  excessive  enjoyment  that  I  could  not  avoid  remark- 
ing on  his  high  spirits. 

"  It's  the  case,  William — it's  the  beautiful  neatness  of 
the  case  that  quite  intoxicates  me.  Oh  Lord,  what  a 
happiness  it  is  to  be  concerned  in  such  a  job  as  this !" 
cries  Mr.  Dark,  slapping  his  stumpy  hands  on  his  fat 
knees  in  a  sort  of  ecstasy. 

I  had  a  very  different  opinion  of  the  case  for  my  own 
part,  but  I  did  not  venture  on  expressing  it.  I  was  too 
anxious  to  know  how  Mr.  James  Smith  had  been  discov- 
ered and  produced  at  the  examination  to  enter  into  any 
arguments.  Mr.  Dark  guessed  what  was  passing  in  my 
mind,  and,  telling  me  to  sit  down  and  make  myself  com- 
fortable, volunteered  of  his  own  accord  to  inform  me  of 
all  that  I  wanted  to  know. 

"  When  I  got  my  instructions  and  my  statement  of 
particulars,"  he  began,  "  I  was  not  at  ail  surprised  to 
hear  that  Mr.  James  Smith  had  come  back.  (I  prophesied 
that,  if  you  remember,  William,  the  last  time  we  met  ?) 
But  I  was  a  good  deal  astonished,  nevertheless,  at  the 
turn  things  had  taken,  and  I  can't  say  I  felt  very  hope- 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  383 

ful  about  finding  our  man.  However,  I  followed  my  mas- 
ter's directions,  and  put  the  advertisement  in  the  papers. 
It  addressed  Mr.  James  Smith  by  name,  but  it  was  very 
carefully  worded  as  to  what  was  wanted  of  him.  Two 
days  after  it  appeared,  a  letter  came  to  our  office  in  a 
woman's  handwriting.  It  was  my  business  to  open  the 
letters,  and  I  opened  that.  The  writer  was  short  and 
mysterious.  She  requested  that  somebody  would  call 
from  our  office  at  a  certain  address,  between  the  hours 
of  two  and  four  that  afternoon,  in  reference  to  the  ad- 
vertisement which  we  had  inserted  in  the  newspapers. 
Of  course,  I  was  the  somebody  who  went.  I  kept  my- 
self from  building  up  hopes  by  the  way,  knowing  what  a 
lot  of  Mr.  James  Smiths  there  were  in  London.  On  get- 
ting to  the  house,  I  was  shown  into  the  drawing-room, 
and  there,  dressed  in  a  wrapper  and  lying  on  a  sofa,  was 
an  uncommonly  pretty  woman,  who  looked  as  if  she  was 
just  recovering  from  an  illness.  She  had  a  newspaper 
by  her  side,  and  came  to  the  point  at  once :  '  My  hus- 
band's name  is  James  Smith,'  she  says,  '  and  I  have  my 
reasons  for  wanting  to  know  if  he  is  the  person  you  are 
in  search  of.'  I  described  our  man  as  Mr.  James  Smith, 
of  Darrock  Hall,  Cumberland.  '  I  know  no  such  person,' 
says  she — ' 

"  What !  was  it  not  the  second  wife,  after  all  ?"  I  broke 
out. 

"  Wait  a  bit,"  says  Mr.  Dark.  "  I  mentioned  the  name 
of  the  yacht  next,  and  she  started  up  on  the  sofa  as  if  she 
had  been  shot.  '  I  think  you  were  married  in  Scotland, 
ma'am,'  says  I.  She  turns  as  pale  as  ashes,  and  drops 
back  on  the  sofa,  and  says  faintly,  'It  is  my  husband. 
Oh,  sir,  what  has  happened  ?  What  do  you  want  with 
him?  Is  he  in  debt?'  I  took  a  minute  to  think,  and 
then  made  up  my  mind  to  tell  her  every  thing,  feeling 
that  she  would  keep  her  husband  (as  she  called  him)  out 


384  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

of  the  way  if  I  frightened  her  by  any  mysteries.  A  nice 
job  I  had,  William,  as  you  may  suppose,  when  she  knew 
about  the  bigamy  business.  What  with  screaming,  faint- 
ing, crying,  and  blowing  me  up  (as  if  I  was  to  blame!), 
she  kept  me  by  that  sofa  of  hers  the  best  part  of  an  hour 
— kept  me  there,  in  short,  till  Mr.  James  Smith  himself 
came  back.  1  leave  you  to  judge  if  that  mended  matters. 
He  found  me  mopping  the  poor  woman's  temples  with 
scent  and  water ;  and  he  would  have  pitched  me  out  of 
the  window,  as  sure  as  I  sit  here,  if  I  had  not  met  him 
and  staggered  him  at  once  with  the  charge  of  murder 
against  his  wife.  That  stopped  him  when  he  was  in  full 
cry,  I  can  promise  you.  '  Go  and  wait  in  the  next 
room,'  says  he,  'and  I'll  come  in  and  speak  to  you  di- 
rectly.' " 

"  And  did  you  go  ?"  I  asked. 

"  Of  course  I  did,"  said  Mr.  Dark.  "  I  knew  he  couldn't 
get  out  by  the  drawing-room  windows,  and  I  knew  I 
could  watch  the  door;  so  away  I  went,  leaving  him 
alone  with  the  lady,  who  didn't  spare  him  by  any  manner 
of  means,  as  I  could  easily  hear  in  the  next  room.  How- 
ever, all  rows  in  this  world  come  to  an  end  sooner  or 
later,  and  a  man  with  any  brains  in  his  head  may  do 
what  he  pleases  with  a  woman  who  is  fond  of  him.  Be- 
fore long  I  heard  her  crying  and  kissing  him.  '  I  can't 
go  home,'  she  says,  after  this.  '  You  have  behaved  like 
a  villain  and  a  monster  to  me — but  oh,  Jemmy,  I  can't 
give  you  up  to  any  body !  Don't  go  back  to  your  wife ! 
Oh,  don't,  don't  go  back  to  your  wife !'  '  No  fear  of  that,' 
says  he.  '  My  wife  wouldn't  have  me  if  I  did  go  back  to 
her.'  After  that  I  heard  the  door  open,  and  went  out  to 
meet  him  on  the  landing.  He  began  swearing  the  mo- 
ment he  saw  me,  as  if  that  was  any  good.  '  Business 
first,  it'you  please,  sir,'  says  I, '  and  any  pleasure  you  like, 
in  the  way  of  swearing,  afterward.'  With  that  begin- 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  385 

ning  I  mentioned  our  terms  to  him,  and  asked  the  pleas* 
ure  of  his  company  to  Cumberland  in  return.  He  was 
uncommonly  suspicious  at  first,  but  I  promised  to  draw 
out  a  legal  document  (mere  waste  paper,  of  no  earthly 
use  except  to  pacify  him),  engaging  to  hold  him  harm- 
less throughout  the  proceedings ;  and  what  with  that, 
and  telling  him  of  the  frightful  danger  his  wife  was  in,  I 
managed,  at  last,  to  carry  my  point." 

"But  did  the  second  wife  make  no  objection  to  his 
going  away  with  you  ?"  I  inquired. 

"  Not  she,"  said  Mr.  Dark.  "  I  stated  the  case  to  her 
just  as  it  stood,  and  soon  satisfied  her  that  there  was  no 
danger  of  Mr.  James  Smith's  first  wife  laying  any  claim 
to  him.  After  hearing  that,  she  joined  me  in  persuading 
him  to  do  his  duty,  and  said  she  pitied  your  mistress 
from  the  bottom  of  her  heart.  With  her  influence  to 
back  me,  I  had  no  great  fear  of  our  man  changing  his 
mind.  I  had  the  door  watched  that  night,  however,  so 
as  to  make  quite  sure  of  him.  The  next  morning  he  was 
ready  to  time  when  I  called,  and  a  quarter  of  an  hour 
after  that  we  were  off  together  for  the  north  road.  We 
made  the  journey  with  post-horses,  being  afraid  of  chance 
passengers,  you  know,  in  public  conveyances.  On  the 
way  down,  Mr.  James  Smith  and  I  got  on  as  comforta- 
bly together  as  if  we  had  bee"h  a  pair  of  old  friends.  I 
told  the  story  of  our  tracing  him  to  the  north  of  Scot- 
land, and  he  gave  me  the  particulars,  in  return,  of  his 
bolting  from  Darrock  Hall.  They  are  rather  amusing, 
William :  would  you  like  to  hear  them  ?" 

I  told  Mr.  Dark  that  he  had  anticipated  the  very  ques- 
tion I  was  about  to  ask  him. 

"  Well,"  he  said,  "  this  is  how  it  was :  To  begin  at  the 
beginning,  our  man  really  took  Mrs.  Smith,  Number  Two, 
to  the  Mediterranean,  as  we  heard.  He  sailed  up  the 
Spanish  coast,  and,  after  short  trips  ashore,  stopped  at  a 


386  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

sea-side  place  in  France  called  Cannes.  There  he  saw  a 
house  and  grounds  to  be  sold  which  took  his  fancy  as  a 
nice  retired  place  to  keep  Number  Two  in.  Nothing 
particular  was  wanted  but  the  money  to  buy  it ;  and, 
not  having  the  little  amount  in  his  own  possession, 
Mr.  James  Smith  makes  a  virtue  of  necessity,  and  goes 
back  overland  to  his  wife  with  private  designs  on  her 
purse-strings.  Number  Two,  who  objects  to  be  left  be- 
hind, goes  with  him  as  far  as  London.  There  he  trumps 
up  the  first  story  that  comes  into  his  head  about  rents  in 
the  country,  and  a  house  in  Lincolnshire  that  is  too  damp 
for  her  to  trust  herself  in  ;  and  so,  leaving  her  for  a  few 
days  in  London,  starts  boldly  for  Darrock  Hall.  His  no- 
tion was  to  wheedle  your  mistress  out  of  the  money  by 
good  behavior ;  but  it  seems  he  started  badly  by  quarrel- 
ing writh  her  about  a  fiddle-playing  parson — 

"  Yes,  yes,  I  know  all  about  that  part  of  the  story,"  I 
broke  in,  seeing  by  Mr.  Dark's  manner  that  he  was  likely 
to  speak  both  ignorantly  and  impertinently  of  my  mis- 
tress's unlucky  friendship  for  Mr.  Meeke.  "  Go  on  to 
the  time  when  I  left  my  master  alone  in  the  Red  Room, 
and  tell  me  what  he  did  between  midnight  and  nine  the 
next  morning." 

"  Did  ?"  said  Mr.  Dark.  "  Why,  he  went  to  bed  with 
the  unpleasant  conviction  on  his  mind  that  your  mistress 
had  found  him  out,  and  with  no  comfort  to  speak  of  ex- 
cept what  he  could  get  out  of  the  brandy  bottle.  He 
couldn't  sleep ;  and  the  more  he  tossed  and  tumbled,  the 
more  certain  he  felt  that  his  wife  intended  to  have  him 
tried  for  bigamy.  At  last,  toward  the  gray  of  the  morn- 
ing, he  could  stand  it  no  longer,  and  he  made  up  his 
mind  to  give  the  law  the  slip  wyhile  he  had  the  chance. 
As  soon  as  he  was  dressed,  it  struck  him  that  there 
might  be  a  reward  offered  for  catching  him,  and  he  de- 
termined to  make  that  slight  change  in  his  personal  ap- 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  387 

pearance  which  puzzled  the  witnesses  so  much  before  the 
magistrate  to-day.  So  he  opens  his  dressing-case  and 
crops  his  hair  in  no  time,  and  takes  off  his  whiskers  next. 
The  tire  was  out,  and  he  had  to  shave  in  cold  water. 
What  witli  that,  and  what  with  the  flurry  of  his  mind, 
naturally  enough  he  cut  himself— 

"And  dried  the  blood  with  his  night-gown!"  says  I. 

"  With  his  night-gown,"  repeated  Mr.  Dark.  "  It  was 
the  first  thing  that  lay  handy,  and  he  snatched  it  up. 
Wait  a  bit,  though ;  the  cream  of  the  thing  is  to  come. 
When  he  had  done  being  his  own  barber,  he  couldn't  for 
the  life  of  him  hit  on  a  way  of  getting  rid  of  the  loose 
hair.  The  fire  was  out,  and  he  had  no  matches,  so  he 
couldn't  burn  it.  As  for  throwing  it  away,  he  didn't 
dare  do  that  in  the  house  or  about  the  house,  for  fear  of 
its  being  found,  and  betraying  what  he  had  done.  So  he 
wraps  it  all  up  in  paper,  crams  it  into  his  pocket  to  be 
disposed  of  when  he  is  at  a  safe  distance  from  the  Hall, 
takes  his  bag,  gets  out  at  the  window,  shuts  it  softly  aft- 
er him,  and  makes  for  the  road  as  fast  as  his  long  legs 
will  carry  him.  There  he  walks  on  till  a  coach  overtakes 
him,  and  so  travels  back  to  London  to  find  himself  in  a 
fresh  scrape  as  soon  as  he  gets  there.  An  interesting 
situation,  William,  and  hard  traveling  from  one  end  of 
France  to  the  other,  had  not  agreed  together  in  the  case 
of  Number  Two.  Mr.  James  Smith  found  her  in  bed, 
with  doctor's  orders  that  she  was  not  to  be  moved. 
There  was  nothing  for  it  after  that  but  to  lie  by  in  Lon- 
don till  the  lady  got  better.  Luckily  for  us,  she  didn't 
hurry  herself;  so  that,  after  all,  your  mistress  has  to 
thank  the  very  woman  who  supplanted  her  for  clearing 
her  character  by  helping  us  to  find  Mr.  James  Smith." 

"  And,  pray,  how  did  you  come  by  that  loose  hair  of 
his  which  you  showed  before  the  justice  to-day  ?"  I 
asked.  ^* 


388  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

"Thank  Number  Two  again,"  says  Mr.  Dark.  "I 
was  put  up  to  asking  after  it  by  what  she  told  me. 
While  we  were  talking  about  the  advertisement,  I  made 
so  bold  as  to  inquire  what  first  set  her  thinking  that  her 
husband  and  the  Mr.  James  Smith  whom  we  wanted 
might  be  one  and  the  same  man.  '  Nothing,'  says  she, 
4  but  seeing  him  come  home  with  his  hair  cut  short  and 
his  whiskers  shaved  off,  and  finding  that  he  could  not 
give  me  any  good  reason  for  disfiguring  himself  in  that 
way.  I  had  my  suspicions  that  something  was  wrong, 
and  the  sight  of  your  advertisement  strengthened  them 
directly.'  The  hearing  her  say  that  suggested  to  my 
mind  that  there  might  be  a  difficulty  in  identifying  him 
after  the  change  in  his  looks,  and  I  asked  him  what  he 
had  done  with  the  loose  hair  before  we  left  London.  It 
was  found  in  the  pocket  of  his  traveling  coat  just  as  he 
had  huddled  it  up  there  on  leaving  the  Hall,  worry,  and 
fright,  and  vexation  having  caused  him  to  forget  all 
about  it.  Of  course  I  took  charge  of  the  parcel,  and  you 
know  what  good  it  did  as  well  as  I  do.  So  to  speak, 
William,  it  just  completed  this  beautifully  neat  case. 
Looking  at  the  matter  in  a  professional  point  of  view,  I 
don't  hesitate  to  say  that  we  have  managed  our  business 
with  Mr.  James  Smith  to  perfection.  We  have  produced 
him  at  the  right  time,  and  we  are  going  to  get  rid  of 
him  at  the  right  time.  By  to-night  he  will  be  on  his 
way  to  foreign  parts  with  Number  Two,  and  he  won't 
show  his  nose  in  England  again  if  he  lives  to  the  age  of 
Methuselah." 

It  was  a  relief  to  hear  that,  and  it  was  almost  as  great 
a  comfort  to  find,  from  what  Mr.  Dark  said  next,  that 
my  mistress  need  fear  nothing  that  Josephine  could  do 
for  the  future. 

The  charge  of  theft,  on  which  she  was  about  to  be 
tried,  did  not  afford  the  shadow  of  an  excuse  in  law  any 


THE    <siUEEX    OF    HEARTS.  389 

more  than  in  logic  for  alluding  to  the  crime  which  her 
master  had  committed.  If  she  meant  to  talk  about  it 
she  might  do  so  in  her  place  of  transportation,  but  she 
would  not  have  the  slightest  chance  of  being  listened  to 
previously  in  a  court  of  law. 

"In  short,"  said  Mr.  Dark,  rising  to  take  his  leave, 
"  as  I  have  told  you  already,  William,  it's  checkmate  for 
marmzelle.  She  didn't  manage  the  business  of  the  rob- 
bery half  as  sharply  as  I  should  have  expected.  She 
certainly  began  well  enough  by  staying  modestly  at  a 
lodging  in  the  village  to  give  her  attendance  at  the  ex- 
aminations, as  it  might  be  required ;  nothing  could  look 
more  innocent  and  respectable  so  far  ;  but  her  hiding  the 
property  between  the  mattresses  of  her  bed — the  very 
first  place  that  any  experienced  man  would  think  of  look- 
ing in — was  such  an  amazingly  stupid  thing  to  do,  that  I 
really  can't  account  for  it,  unless  her  mind  had  more 
weighing  on  it  than  it  was  able  to  bear,  which,  consider- 
ing the  heavy  stakes  she  played  for,  is  likely  enough. 
Anyhow,  her  hands  are  tied  now,  and  her  tongue  too,  for 
the  matter  of  that.  Give  my  respects  to  your  mistress, 
and  tell  her  that  her  runaway  husband  and  her  lying 
rnaid  will  never  either  of  them  harm  her  again  as  long 
as  they  live.  She  has  nothing  to  do  now  but  to  pluck 
up  her  spirits  and  live  happy.  Here's  long  life  to  her 
and  to  you,  William,  in  the  last  glass  of  ale ;  and  here's 
the  same  toast  to  myself  in  the  bottom  of  the  jug." 

With  those  words  Mr.  Dark  pocketed  his  large  snuff- 
box, gave  a  last  wink  with  his  bright  eye,  and  walked 
rapidly  away,  whistling,  to  catch  the  London  coach. 
From  that  time  to  this  he  and  I  have  never  met  again. 

A  few  last  words  relating  to  my  mistress  and  to  the 
other  persons  chiefly  concerned  in  this  narrative  wiii 
conclude  all  that  it  is  now  necessary  for  me  to  say. 

For  some  months,  the  relatives  and  friends,  and  I  my- 


390  THE    Qt'EEX    OF    HEARTS. 

self,  felt  sad  misgivings  on  my  poor  mistress's  account. 
We  doubted  if  it  was  possible,  with  such  a  quick,  sensi- 
tive nature  as  hers,  that  she  could  support  the  shock 
which  had  been  inflicted  on  her.  But  our  powers  of  en- 
durance are,  as  I  have  learned  to  believe,  more  often 
equal  to  the  burdens  laid  upon  us  than  we  are  apt  to 
imagine.  I  have  seen  many  surprising  recoveries  from 
illness  after  all  hope  had  been  lost,  and  I  have  lived  to 
see  my  mistress  recover  from  the  grief  and  terror  which 
we  once  thought  would  prove  fatal  to  her.  It  was  long 
before  she  began  to  hold  up  her  head  again ;  but  care 
and  kindness,  and  time  and  change  wrought  their  eifect 
on  her  at  last.  She  is  not  now,  and  never  will  be  again, 
the  woman  she  was  once ;  her  manner  is  altered,  and  she 
looks  older  by  many  a  year  than  she  really  is.  But  her 
health  causes  us  no  anxiety  now ;  her  spirits  are  calm 
and  equal,  and  I  have  good  hope  that  many  quiet  years 
of  service  in  her  house  are  left  for  me  still.  I  myself 
have  married  during  the  long  interval  of  time  which  I 
am  now  passing  over  in  a  few  words.  This  change  in 
my  life  is,  perhaps,  not  worth  mentioning,  but  I  am  re- 
minded of  my  two  little  children  when  I  speak  of  my 
mistress  in  her  present  position.  I  really  think  they 
make  the  great  happiness,  and  interest,  and  airmsement 
of  her  life,  and  prevent  her  from  feeling  lonely  and  dried 
up  at  heart.  It  is  a  pleasant  reflection  to  me  to  remem- 
ber this,  and  perhaps  it  may  be  the  same  to  you,  for 
which  reason  only  I  speak  of  it. 

As  for  the  other  persons  connected  with  the  troubles 
at  Darrock  Hall,  I  may  mention  the  vile  woman  Jose- 
phine first,  so  as  to  have  the  sooner  done  with  her.  Mr. 
Dark's  guess,  when  he  tried  to  account  for  her  want  of 
cunning  in  hiding  the  stolen  property,  by  saying  that  her 
mind  might  have  had  more"  weighing  on  it  than  she  was 
able  to  bear,  turned  out  to  be  nothing  less  than  the  plain 


THE  QUEEN'  OF  HEARTS.  391 

and  awful  truth.  After  she  had  been  found  guilty  of  the 
robbery,  and  had  been  condemned  to  seven  years  trans- 
portation, a  worse  sentence  fell  upon  her  from  a  higher 
tribunal  than  any  in  this  world.  While  she  was  still  in 
the  county  jail,  previous  to  her  removal,  her  mind  gave 
way,  the  madness  breaking  out  in  an  attempt  to  set  fire 
to  the  prison.  Her  case  was  pronounced  to  be  hopeless 
from  the  first.  The  lawful  asylum  received  her,  and  the 
lawful  asylum  will  keep  her  to  the  end  of  her  days. 

Mr.  James  Smith,  who,  in  my  humble  opinion,  de- 
served hanging  by  law,  or  drowning  by  accident  at  least, 
lived  quietly  abroad  with  his  Scotch  wife  (or  no  wife) 
for  two  years,  and  then  died  in  the  most  quiet  and  cus- 
tomary manner,  in  his  bed,  after  a  short  illness.  His  end 
was  described  to  me  as  a  "  highly  edifying  one."  But 
as  he  was  also  reported  to  have  sent  his  forgiveness  to 
his  wife — which  was  as  much  as  to  say  that  he  was  the 
injured  person  of  the  two — I  take  leave  to  consider  that 
he  was  the  same  impudent  vagabond  in  his  last  moments 
that  he  had  been  all  his  life.  His  Scotch  widow  has 
married  again,  and  is  now  settled  in  London.  I  hope 
her  husband  is  all  her  own  property  this  time. 

Mr.  Meeke  must  not  be  forgotten,  although  he  has 
dropped  out  of  the  latter  part  of  my  story  because  he 
had  nothing  to  do  with  the  serious  events  which  follow- 
ed Josephine's  perjury.  In  the  confusion  and  wretched- 
ness of  that  time,  he  was  treated  with  very  little  cere- 
mony, and  was  quite  passed  over  when  we  left  the 
neighborhood.  After  pining  and  fretting  some  time,  as 
we  afterward  heard,  in  his  lonely  parsonage,  he  resigned 
his  living  at  the  first  chance  he  got,  and  took  a  sort  of 
under-chaplain's  place  in  an  English  chapel  abroad.  He 
writes  to  my  mistress  once  or  twice  a  year  to  ask  after 
her  health  and  well-being,  and  she  writes  back  to  him. 
That  is  all  the  communication  they  are  ever  likely  to 


392  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

have  with  each  other.  The  music  they  once  played  to- 
gether will  never  sound  again.  Its  last  notes  have  long 
since  faded  away,  and  the  last  words  of  this  story,  trem- 
bling on  the  lips  of  the  teller,  may  now  fade  with  them. 


THE  NINTH  DAY. 

A  LITTLE  change  in  the  weather.  The  rain  still  con- 
tinues, but  the  wind  is  not  quite  so  high.  Have  I  any 
reason  to  believe,  because  it  is  calmer  on  land,  that  it  is 
also  calmer  at  sea?  Perhaps  not.  But  my  mind  is 
scarcely  so  uneasy  to-day,  nevertheless. 

I  had  looked  over  the  newspaper  with  the  usual  re- 
sult, and  had  laid  it  down  with  the  customary  sense  of 
disappointment,  when  Jessie  handed  me  a  letter  which 
she  had  received  that  morning.  It  was  written  by  her 
aunt,  and  it  upbraided  her  in  the  highly  exaggerated 
terms  which  ladies  love  to  employ,  where  any  tender  in- 
terests of  their  own  are  concerned,  for  her  long  silence 
and  her  long  absence  from  home.  Home!  I  thought 
of  my  poor  boy  and  of  the  one  hope  on  which  all  his 
happiness  rested,  and  I  felt  jealous  of  the  word  when  I 
saw  it  used  persuasively  in  a  letter  to  our  guest.  What 
right  had  any  one  to  mention  "  home"  to  her  until  George 
had  spoken  first  ? 

"  I  must  answer  it  by  return  of  post,"  said  Jessie,  with 
a  tone  of  sorrow  in  her  voice  for  which  my  heart  warmed 
to  her.  "  You  have  been  very  kind  to  me  ;  you  have 
taken  more  pains  to  interest  and  amuse  me  than  I  am 
worth.  I  can  laugh  about  most  things,  but  I  can't  laugh 
about  going  away.  I  am  honestly  and  sincerely  too 
grateful  for  that." 

She  paused,  came  roun-l  to  where  I  was  sitting,  perch- 
ed herself  on  the  end  of  the  table,  and,  resting  her  hands 
on  my  shoulders,  added  gently, 

"  It  must  be  the  day  after  to-morrow,  must  it  not  ?" 


394  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

I  could  not  trust  myself  to  answer.  If  I  had  spoken, 
I  should  have  betrayed  George's  secret  in  spite  of  my- 
self. 

"To-morrow  is  the  tenth  day,"  she  went  on,  softly. 
"  It  looks  so  selfish  and  so  ungrateful  to  go  the  moment 
I  have  heard  the  last  of  the  stones,  that  I  am  quite  dis- 
tressed at  being  obliged  to  enter  on  the  subject  at  all. 
And  yet,  what  choice  is  left  me  ?  what  can  I  do  when 
my  aunt  writes  to  me  in  that  way  ?" 

She  took  up  the  letter  again,  and  looked  at  it  so  rue- 
fully that  I  drew  her  head  a  little  nearer  to  me,  and 
gratefully  kissed  the  smooth  white  forehead. 

"  If  your  aunt  is  only  half  as  anxious  to  see  you  again, 
my  love,  as  I  am  to  see  my  son,  I  must  forgive  her  for 
taking  you  away  from  us." 

The  words  came  from  me  without  premeditation.  It 
was  not  calculation  this  time,  but  sheer  instinct  that  im- 
pelled me  to  test  her  in  this  way,  once  more,  by  a  direct 
reference  to  George.  She  was  so  close  to  me  that  I  felt 
her  breath  quiver  on  my  cheek.  Her  eyes  had  been  fixed 
on  my  face  a  moment  before,  but  they  now  wandered 
away  from  it  constrainedly.  One  of  her  hands  trembled 
a  little  on  my  shoulder,  and  she  took  it  off. 

"  Thank  you  for  trying  to  make  our  parting  easier  to 
me,"  she  said,  quickly,  and  in  a  lower  tone  than  she  had 
spoken  in  yet.  I  made  no  answer,  but  still  looked  her 
anxiously  in  the  face.  For  a  few  seconds  her  nimble 
delicate  fingers  nervously  folded  and  refolded  the  letter 
from  her  aunt,  then  she  abruptly  changed  her  position. 

"  The  sooner  I  write,  the  sooner  it  will  be  over,"  she 
said,  and  hurriedly  turned  away  to  the  paper-case  on  the 
side-table. 

How  was  the  change  in  her  manner  to  be  rightly  in- 
terpreted? Was  she  hurt  by  what  I  had  said,  or  was 
she  secretly  so  much  affected  by  it,  in  the  impressionable 


THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS.  395 

state  of  her  mind  at  that  moment,  as  to  be  incapable 
of  exerting  a  young  girl's  customary  self-control  ?  Her 
looks,  actions,  and  language  might  bear  either  interpreta- 
tion. One  striking  omission  had  marked  her  conduct 
when  I  had  referred  to  George's  return.  She  had  not 
inquired  when  I  expected  him  back.  Was  this  indiffer- 
ence ?  Surely  not.  Surely  indifference  would  have  led 
her  to  ask  the  conventionally  civil  question  which  ninety- 
nine  persons  out  of  a  hundred  would  have  addressed  to 
me  as  a  matter  of  course.  Was  she,  on  her  side,  afraid 
to  trust  herself  to  speak  of  George  at  a  tune  when  an  un- 
usual tenderness  was  aroused  in  her  by  the  near  pros- 
pect of  saying  farewell  ?  It  might  be — it  might  not  be — 
it  might  be.  My  feeble  reason  took  the  side  of  my  in- 
clination ;  and,  after  vibrating  between  Yes  and  No,  I 
stopped  where  I  had  begun — at  Yes. 

She  finished  the  letter  in  a  few  minutes,  and  dropped 
it  into  the  post-bag  the  moment  it  was  done. 

"  Not  a  word  more,"  she  said,  returning  to  me  with  a 
sigh  of  relief — "  not  a  word  about  my  aunt  or  my  going 
away  till  the  time  comes.  We  have  two  more  days ;  let 
us  make  the  most  of  them." 

Two  more  days !  Eight-and-forty  hours  still  to  pass  ; 
sixty  minutes  in  each  of  those  hours ;  and  every  minute 
long  enpugh  to  bring  with  it  an  event  fatal  to  George's 
future !  The  bare  thought  kept  my  mind  in  a  fever. 
For  the  remainder  of  the  day  I  was  as  desultory  and  as 
restless  as  our  Queen  of  Hearts  herself.  Owen  affection- 
ately did  his  best  to  quiet  me,  but  in  vain.  Even  Mor- 
gan, who  whiled  away  the  time  by  smoking  incessantly, 
\\:is  struck  by  the  wretched  spectacle  of  nervous  anxiety 
that  I  presented  to  him,  and  pitied  me  openly  for  being 
unable  to  compose  myself  with  a  pipe.  Wearily  and 
uselessly  the  hours  wore  on  till  the  sun  set.  The  clouds 
in  the  western  heaven  wore  wild  and  tortured  shapes 


396  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

when  I  looked  out  at  them ;  and,  as  the  gathering  dark- 
ness fell  on  us,  the  fatal  fearful  wind  rose  once  more. 

When  we  assembled  at  eight,  the  drawing  of  the  lots 
had  no  longer  any  interest  or  suspense,  so  far  as  I  was 
concerned.  I  had  read  my  last  story,  and  it  now  only 
remained  for  chance  to  decide  the  question  of  precedency 
between  Owen  and  Morgan.  Of  the  two  numbers  left 
in  the  bowl,  the  one  drawn  was  Nine.  This  made  it 
Morgan's  turn  to  read,  and  left  it  appropriately  to  Owen, 
as  our  eldest  brother,  to  close  the  proceedings  on  the 
next  night. 

Morgan  looked  round  the  table  when  he  had  spread 
out  his  manuscript,  and  seemed  half  inclined  to  open  fire, 
as  usual,  with  a  little  preliminary  sarcasm ;  but  his  eyes 
met  mine ;  he  saw  the  anxiety  I  was  suffering ;  and  his 
natural  kindness,  perversely  as  he  might  strive  to  hide  it, 
got  the  better  of  him.  He  looked  down  on  his  paper ; 
growled  out  briefly,  "  No  need  for  a  preface ;  my  little 
bit  of  writing  explains  itself;  let's  go  on  and  have  done 
with  it,"  and  so  began  to  read  without  another  word 
from  himself  or  from  any  of  us. 


THE  QUEE^  OF  HEARTS.  397 


BROTHER  MORGAN'S  STORY 

OF 

FAUNTLEROY. 


IT  was  certainly  a  dull  little  dinner-party.  Of  the  four 
guests,  two  of  us  were  men  between  fifty  and  sixty,  and 
two  of  us  were  youths  between  eighteen  and  twenty, 
and  we  had  no  subjects  in  common.  We  were  all  inti- 
mate with  our  host,  but  were  only  slightly  acquainted 
with  each  other.  Perhaps  we  should  have  got  on  better 
if  there  had  been  some  ladies  among  us ;  but  the  master 
of  the  house  was  a  bachelor,  and,  except  the  parlor-maid, 
who  assisted  in  waiting  on  us  at  dinner,  no  daughter  of 
Eve  was  present  to  brighten  the  dreary  scene. 

We  tried  all  sorts  of  subjects,  but  they  dropped  one 
after  the  other.  The  elder  gentlemen  seemed  to  be 
afraid  of  committing  themselves  by  talking  too  freely 
within  hearing  of  us  juniors,  and  we,  on  our  side,  re- 
strained our  youthful  flow  of  spirits  and  youthful  freedom 
of  conversation  out  of  deference  to  our  host,  who  seemed 
once  or  twice  to  be  feeling  a  little  nervous  about  the 
continued  propriety  of  our  behavior  in  the  presence  of 
his  respectable  guests.  To  make  matters  worse,  we  had 
dined  at  a  sensible  hour.  When  the  bottles  made  their 
first  round  at  dessert,  the  clock  on  the  mantle-piece  only 
struck  eight.  I  counted  the  strokes,  and  felt  certain, 
from  the  expression  of  his  face,  that  the  other  junior 
guest,  who  sat  on  one  side  of  me  at  the  round  table,  was 
counting  them  also.  When  we  came  to  the  final  eight, 
we  exchanged  looks  of  despair,  "Two  hours  more  of 


398  THE    Ql'EEX    OF    HEARTS. 

this !  What  on  earth  is  to  become  of  us  ?"  In  the  lan- 
guage of  the  eyes,  that  was  exactly  what  we  said  to  each 
other. 

The  wine  was  excellent,  and  I  think  we  all  came  sep- 
arately and  secretly  to  the  same  conclusion — that  our 
chance  of  getting  through  the  evening  was  intimately 
connected  with  our  resolution  in  getting  through  the 
bottles. 

As  a  matter  of  course,  we  talked  wine.  No  company 
of  Englishmen  can  assemble  together  for  an  evening 
without  doing  that.  Every  man  in  this  country  who  is 
rich  enough  to  pay  income-tax  has  at  one  time  or  other 
in  his  life  effected  a  very  remarkable  transaction  in  wine. 
Sometimes  he  has  made  such  a  bargain  as  he  never  expects 
to  make  again.  Sometimes  he  is  the  only  man  in  En- 
gland, not  a  peer  of  the  realm,  who  has  got  a  single  drop 
of  a  certain  famous  vintage  which  has  perished  from  the 
face  of  the  earth.  Sometimes  he  has  purchased,  with  a 
friend,  a  few  last  left  dozens  from  the  cellar  of  a  deceased 
potentate,  at  a  price  so  exorbitant  that  he  can  only  wag 
his  head  and  decline  mentioning  it ;  and,  if  you  ask  his 
friend,  that  friend  will  wag  his  head,  and  decline  men- 
tioning it  also.  Sometimes  he  has  been  at  an  out-of-the- 
way  country  inn  ;  has  found  the  sherry  not  drinkable ; 
has  asked  if  there  is  no  other  wine  in  the  house ;  has 
been  informed  that  there  is  some  "sourish  foreign  stuff 
that  nobody  ever  drinks ;"  has  called  for  a  bottle  of  it ; 
has  found  it  Burgundy,  such  as  all  France  can  not  now 
produce;  has  cunningly  kept  his  own  counsel  with  the 
widowed  landlady,  and  has  bought  the  whole  stock  for 
"  an  old  song."  Sometimes  he  knows  the  proprietor  of 
a  famous  tavern  in  London,  and  he  recommends  his  one 
or  two  particular  friends,  the  next  time  they  are  passing 
that  wTay,  to  go  in  and  dine,  and  give  his  compliments  to 
the  landlord,  and  ask  for  a  bottle  of  the  brown  sherry, 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  399 

with  the  light  blue — as  distinguished  from  the  dark  blue 
— seal.  Thousands  of  people  dine  there  every  year,  and 
think  they  have  got  the  famous  sherry  when  they  get  the 
dark  blue  seal ;  but  the  real  wine,  the  famous  wine,  is  the 
light  blue  seal,  and  nobody  in  England  knows  it  but  the 
landlord  and  his  friends.  In  all  these  wine-conversations, 
whatever  variety  there  may  be  in  the  various  experiences 
related,  one  of  two  great  first  principles  is  invariably  as- 
sumed by  each  speaker  in  succession.  Either  he  knows 
more  about  it  than  any  one  else,  or  he  has  got  better  wine 
of  his  own  even  than  the  excellent  wine  he  is  now  drink- 
ing. Men  can  get  together  sometimes  without  talking 
of  women,  without  talking  of  horses,  without  talking  of 
politics,  but  they  can  not  assemble  to  eat  a  meal  together 
without  talking  of  wine,  and  they  can  not  talk  of  wine 
without  assuming  to  each  one  of  themselves  an  absolute 
infallibility  in  connection  with  that  single  subject  which 
they  would  shrink  from  asserting  in  relation  to  any  other 
topic  under  the  sun. 

How  long  the  inevitable  wine-talk  lasted  on  the  par- 
ticular social  occasion  of  which  I  am  now  writing  is  more 
than  I  can  undertake  to  say.  I  had  heard  so  many  oth- 
er conversations  of  the  same  sort  at  so  many  other  tables 
that  my  attention  wandered  away  wearily,  and  I  began 
to  forget  all  about  the  dull  little  dinner-party,  and  the 
badly-assorted  company  of  guests  of  whom  I  formed  one. 
How  long  I  remained  in  this  not  over-courteous  condition 
of  mental  oblivion  is  more  than  I  can  tell ;  but  when  my 
attention  was  recalled,  in  due  course  of  time,  to  the  little 
world  around  me,  I  found  that  the  good  wine  had  begun 
to  do  its  good  office. 

The  stream  of  talk  on  either  side  of  the  host's  chair 
was  now  beginning  to  flow  cheerful!}'  and  continuously  ; 
the  wine-conversation  had  worn  itself  out;  and  one  of 
th«  elder  guests — Mr.  Wendell — was  occupied  in  telling 


400  THE    QUEEN    OP    HEARTS. 

the  other  guest — Mr.  Trowbridge — of  a  small  fraud  which 
had  lately  been  committed  on  him  by  a  clerk  in  his  em- 
ployment. The  first  part  of  the  story  I  missed  altogeth- 
er. The  last  part,  which  alone  caught  my  attention,  fol- 
lowed the  career  of  the  clerk  to  the  dock  of  the  Old 
Bailey. 

"  So,  as  I  was  telling  you,"  continued  Mr.  Wendell,  "  I 
made  up  my  mind  to  prosecute,  and  I  did  prosecute. 
Thoughtless  people  blamed  me  for  sending  the  young 
man  to  prison,  and  said  I  might  just  as  well  have  forgiven 
him,  seeing  that  the  trifling  sum  of  money  I  had  lost  by 
his  breach  of  trust  was  barely  as  much  as  ten  pounds. 
Of  course,  personally  speaking,  I  would  much  rather  not 
have  gone  into  court ;  but  I  considered  that  my  duty  to 
society  in  general,  and  to  my  brother  merchants  in  par- 
ticular, absolutely  compelled  me  to  prosecute  for  the  sake 
of  example.  I  acted  on  that  principle,  and  I  don't  regret 
that  I  did  so.  The  circumstances  under  which  the  man 
robbed  me  were  particularly  disgraceful.  He  was  a 
hardened  reprobate,  sir,  if  ever  there  was  one  yet ;  and  I 
believe,  in  my  conscience,  that  he  wanted  nothing  but 
the  opportunity  to  be  as  great  a  villain  as  Fauntleroy 
himself." 

At  the  moment  when  Mr.  Wendell  personified  his  idea 
of  consummate  villainy  by  quoting  the  example  of  Fauntle- 
roy, I  saw  the  other  middle-aged  gentleman — Mr.  Trow- 
bridge— color  up  on  a  sudden,  and  begin  to  fidget  in  his 
chair. 

"The  next  time  you  want  to  produce  an  instance  of  a 
villain,  sir."  said  Mr. Trowbridge,  "I  wish  you  could  con- 
trive to  quote  some  other  example  than  Fauntleroy." 

Mr.  Wendell  naturally  enough  looked  excessively  as- 
tonished when  he  heard  these  words,  which  were  very 
firmly  and,  at  the  same  time,  very  politely  addressed  to 
him.  *- 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  401 

"  May  I  inquire  why  you  object  to  my  example  ?"  he 
asked. 

"I  object  to  it,  sir,"  said  Mr. Trowbridge,  "because  it 
makes  me  very  uncomfortable  to  hear  Fauntleroy  called 
a  villain." 

"  Good  heavens  above !"  exclaimed  Mr.  Wendell,  ut- 
terly bewildered.  "  Uncomfortable ! — you,  a  mercantile 
man  like  myself — you,  whose  character  stands  so  high 
every  where — you  uncomfortable  when  you  hear  a  man 
who  was  hanged  for  forgery  called  a  villain !  In  the 
name  of  wonder,  why  ?" 

"Because,"  answered  Mr.  Trowbridge,  with  perfect 
composure,  "Fauntleroy  was  a  friend  of  mine." 

"  Excuse  me,  my  dear  sir,"  retorted  Mr.  Wendell,  in  as 
polished  a  tone  of  sarcasm  as  he  could  command;  "but 
of  all  the  friends  whom  you  have  made  in  the  course  of 
your  useful  and  honorable  career,  I  should  have  thought 
the  friend  you  have  just  mentioned  would  have  been  the 
very  last  to  whom  you  were  likely  to  refer  in  respectable 
society,  at  least  by  name." 

"Fauntleroy  committed  an  unpardonable  crime,  and 
died  a  disgraceful  death,"  said  Mr.  Trowbridge.  "  But, 
for  all  that,  Fauntleroy  wae  a  friend  of  mine,  and  in  that 
character  I  shall  always  acknowledge  him  boldly  to  my 
dying  day.  I  have  a  tenderness  for  his  memory,  though 
he  violated  a  sacred  trust,  and  died  for  it  on  the  gallows. 
Don't  look  shocked,  Mr.  Wendell.  I  will  tell  you,  and 
our  other  friends  here,  if  they  will  let  me,  why  I  feel  that 
tenderness,  which  looks  so  strange  and  so  discreditable  in 
your  eyes.  It  is  rather  a  curious  anecdote,  sir,  and  has 
an  interest,  I  think,  for  all  observers  of  human  nature 
quite  apart  from  its  connection  with  the  unhappy  man 
of  whom  we  have  been  talking.  You  young  gentle- 
men," continued  Mr.  Trowbridge,  addressing  himself  to 
us  juniors,  "have  heard  of  Fauntleroy,  though  he  sinned 


402  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

and  suffered,  and  shocked  all  England  long  before  your 
time  ?" 

We  answered  that  we  had  certainly  heard  of  him  as 
one  of  the  famous  criminals  of  his  day.  We  knew  that 
lie  had  been  a  partner  in  a  great  London  banking-house  ; 
that  he  had  not  led  a  very  virtuous  life ;  that  he  had  pos- 
sessed himself,  by  forgery,  of  trust-moneys  which  he  was 
doubly  bound  to  respect ;  and  that  he  had  been  hanged 
for  his  offense,  in  the  year  eighteen  hundred  and  twenty- 
four,  when  the  gallows  was  still  set  up  for  other  crimes 
than  murder,  and  when  Jack  Ketch  was  in  fashion  as  one 
of  the  hard-working  reformers  of  the  age. 

"  Very  good,"  said  Mr.  Trowbridge.  "  You  both  of 
you  know  quite  enough  of  Fauntleroy  to  be  interested 
in  what  I  am  going  to  tell  you.  When  the  bottles  have 
been  round  the  table,  I  will  start  with  my  story." 

The  bottles  went  round  —  claret  for  the  degenerate 
youngsters  ;  port  for  the  sterling,  steady-headed,  middle- 
aged  gentlemen.  Mr.  Trowbridge  sipped  his  wine  — 
meditated  a  little — sipped  again — and  started  with  the 
promised  anecdote  in  these  terms  : 


CHAPTER  II. 

WHAT  I  am  going  to  tell  you,  gentlemen,  happened 
when  I  was  a  very  young  man,  and  when  I  was  just  set- 
ting up  in  business  on  my  own  account. 

My  father  had  been  Avell  acquainted  for  many  years 
with  Mr.  Fauntleroy,  of  the  famous  London  banking-firm 
of  Marsh,  Stracey,  Fauntleroy,  and  Graham.  Thinking 
it  might  be  of  some  future  service  to  me  to  make  my 
position  known  to  a  great  man  in  the  commercial  world, 
my  father  mentioned  to  his  highly-respected  friend  that 
I  was  about  to  start  in  business  for  myself  in  a  very  small 


THE  QUEE:*  OF  HEARTS.  403 

way,  and  with  very  little  money.  Mr.  Fauntleroy  re- 
ceived the  intimation  with  a  kind  appearance  of  interest, 
and  said  that  he  would  have  his  eye  on  me.  I  expected 
from  this  that  he  would  wait  to  see  if  I  could  keep  on 
ray  legs  at  starting,  and  that,  if  he  found  I  succeeded 
pretty  well,  he  would  then  help  me  forward  if  it  lay  in 
his  power.  As  events  turned  out,  he  proved  to  be  a  far 
better  friend  than  that,  and  he  soon  showed  me  that  I 
had  very  much  underrated  the  hearty  and  generous  in- 
terest which  he  had  felt  in  my  welfare  from  the  first. 

While  I  was  still  fighting  with  the  difficulties  of  setting 
up  my  office,  and  recommending  myself  to  my  connec- 
tion, and  so  forth,  I  got  a  message  from  Mr.  Fauntleroy 
telling  me  to  call  on  him,  at  the  banking-house,  the  first 
time  I  was  passing  that  wray.  As  you  may  easily  imag- 
ine, I  contrived  to  be  passing  that  way  on  a  particularly 
early  occasion,  and,  on  presenting  myself  at  the  bank,  I 
was  shown  at  once  into  Mr.  Fauntleroy's  private  room. 

He  was  as  pleasant  a  man  to  speak  to  as  ever  I  met 
with — bright,  and  gay,  and  companionable  in  his  manner 
— with  a  sort  of  easy,  hearty,  jovial  bluntness  about  him 
that  attracted  every  body.  The  clerks  all  liked  him — 
and  that  is  something  to  say  of  a  partner  in  a  banking- 
house,  I  can  tell  you ! 

"  Well,  young  Trowbridge,"  says  he,  giving  his  papers 
on  the  table  a  brisk  push  away  from  him,  "  so  you  are 
going  to  set  up  in  business  for  yourself,  are  you  ?  I  have 
a  great  regard  for  your  father,  and  a  great  wish  to  see 
you  succeed.  Have  you  started  yet?  No?  Just  on 
the  point  of  beginning,  eh  ?  Very  good.  You  will  have 
your  difficulties,  my  friend,  and  I  mean  to  smooth  one  of 
them  away  for  you  at  the  outset.  A  word  of  advice  for 
your  private  ear — Bank  with  us." 

"  You  are  very  kind,  sir,"  I  answered,  "  and  I  should 
ask  nothing  better  than  to  profit  by  your  suggestion,  if 

18 


404  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

I  could.  But  my  expenses  are  heavy  at  starting,  and 
when  they  are  all  paid  I  am  afraid  I  shall  have  very  little 
left  to  put  by  for  the  first  year.  I  doubt  if  I  shall  be  able 
to  muster  much  more  than  three  hundred  pounds  of  sur- 
plus cash  in  the  world  after  paying  what  I  must  pay  be- 
fore I  set  up  my  office,  and  I  should  be  ashamed  to  trou- 
ble your  house,  sir,  to  open  an  account  for  such  a  trifle 
as  that." 

"  Stuff  and  nonsense !"  says  Mr.  Fauntleroy.  "  Are 
you  a  banker  ?  What  business  have  you  to  offer  an  opin- 
ion on  the  matter  ?  Do  as  I  tell  you — leave  it  to  me — 
bank  with  us — and  draw  for  what  you  like.  Stop  !  I 
haven't  done  yet.  When  you  open  the  account,  speak 
to  the  head  cashier.  Perhaps  you  may  find  he  has  got 
something  to  tell  you.  There  !  there !  go  away — don't 
interrupt  me — good-by — God  bless  you !" 

That  was  his  way — ah  !  poor  fellow,  that  was  his  way. 

I  went  to  the  head  cashier  the  next  morning  when  I 
opened  my  little  modicum  of  an  account.  He  had  re- 
ceived orders  to  pay  my  drafts  without  reference  to  my 
balance.  My  checks,  when  I  had  overdrawn,  were  to  be 
privately  shown  to  Mr.  Fauntleroy.  Do  many  young 
men  who  start  in  business  find  their  prosperous  superiors 
ready  to  help  them  in  that  way  ? 

Well,  I  got  on — got  on  very  fairly  and  steadily,  being 
careful  not  to  venture  out  of  my  depth,  and  not  to  forget 
that  small  beginnings  may  lead  in  time  to  great  ends. 
A  prospect  of  one  of  those  great  ends — great,  I  mean,  to 
such  a  small  trader  as  I  was  at  that  period — showed  itself 
to  me  when  I  had  been  some  little  time  in  business.  In 
plain  terms,  I  had  a  chance  of  joining  in  a  first-rate  trans- 
action, which  would  give  me  profit,  and  position,  and  ev- 
ery thing  I  wanted,  provided  I  could  qualify  myself  for 
engaging  in  it  by  getting  good  security  beforehand  for 
a  very  large  amount. 


THE    QUEEN    OP    HEARTS.  405 

In  this  emergency,  I  thought  of  my  kind  friend,  Mr. 
Fauntleroy,  and  went  to  the  bank,  and  saw  him  once 
more  in  his  private  room. 

There  he  was  at  the  same  table,  with  the  same  heaps 
of  papers  about  him,  and  the  same  hearty,  easy  way  of 
speaking  his  mind  to  you  at  once,  in  the  fewest  possible 
words.  I  explained  the  business  I  came  upon  with  some 
little  hesitation  and  nervousness,  for  I  was  afraid  he  might 
think  I  was  taking  an  unfair  advantage  of  his  former  kind- 
ness to  me.  When  I  had  done,  he  just  nodded  his  head, 
snatched  up  a  blank  sheet  of  paper,  scribbled  a  few  lines 
on  it  in  his  rapid  way,  handed  the  writing  to  me,  and 
pushed  me  out  of  the  room  by  the  two  shoulders  before 
I  could  say  a  single  word.  I  looked  at  the  paper  in  the 
outer  office.  It  was  my  security  from  that  great  bank- 
ing-house for  the  whole  amount,  and  for  more,  if  more 
was  wanted. 

I  could  not  express  my  gratitude  then,  and  I  don't 
know  that  I  can  describe  it  now.  I  can  only  say  that  it 
lias  outlived  the  crime,  the  disgrace,  and  the  awful  death 
on  the  scaffold.  I  am  grieved  to  speak  of  that  death  at 
all ;  but  I  have  no  other  alternative.  The  course  of  my 
story  must  now  lead  me  straight  on  to  the  later  time, 
and  to  the  terrible  discovery  which  exposed  my  bene- 
factor and  my  friend  to  all  England  as  the  forger  Faunt- 
leroy. 

I  must  ask  you  to  suppose  a  lapse  of  some  time  after 
the  occurrence  of  the  events  that  I  have  just  been  relat- 
ing. During  this  interval,  thanks  to  the  kind  assistance 
I  had  received  at  the  outset,  my  position  as  a  man  of 
business  had  greatly  improved.  Imagine  me  now,  if  you 
please,  on  the  high  road  to  prosperity,  with  good  large 
offices  and  a  respectable  staff  of  clerks,  and  picture  me  to 
yourselves  sitting  alone  in  my  private  room  between  four 
and  five  o'clock  on  a  certain  Saturday  afternoon. 


406  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

All  my  letters  had  been  written,  all  the  people  who 
had  appointments  with  me  had  been  received.  I  was 
looking  carelessly  over  the  newspaper,  and  thinking  about 
going  home,  when  one  of  my  clerks  came  in,  and  said  that 
a  stranger  wished  to  see  me  immediately  on  very  import- 
ant business. 

"  Did  he  mention  his  name  ?"  I  inquired. 

"No,  sir." 

"  Did  you  not  ask  him  for  it  ?" 

"  Yes,  sir.  And  he  said  you  would  be  none  the  wiser 
if  he  told  me  what  it  was." 

"  Does  he  look  like  a  begging-letter  writer  ?" 

"  He  looks  a  little  shabby,  sir,  but  he  doesn't  talk  at  all 
like  a  begging-letter  writer.  He  spoke  sharp  and  de- 
cided, sir,  and  said  it  was  in  your  interests  that  he  came, 
and  that  you  would  deeply  regret  it  afterward  if  you  re- 
fused to  see  him." 

"  He  said  that,  did  he  ?     Show  him  in  at  once,  then." 

He  was  shown  in  immediately  :  a  middling-sized  man, 
with  a  sharp,  unwholesome-looking  face,  and  with  a  flip- 
pant, reckless  manner,  dressed  in  a  style  of  shabby  smart- 
ness, eying  me  with  a  bold  look,  and  not  so  overburden- 
ed with  politeness  as  to  trouble  himself  about  taking  oft' 
his  hat  when  he  came  in.  I  had  never  seen  him  before 
in  my  life,  and  I  could  not  form  the  slightest  conjecture 
from  his  appearance  to  guide  me  toward  guessing  his 
position  in  the  world.  He  was  not  a  gentleman,  evident- 
ly ;  but  as  to  fixing  his  whereabouts  in  the  infinite  down- 
ward gradations  of  vagabond  existence  in  London,  that 
was  a  mystery  which  I  was  totally  incompetent  to  solve. 

"  Is  your  name  Trowbridge  ?"  he  began. 

"Yes,"  I  answered,  dryly  enough. 

"Do  you  bank  with  Marsh,  Stracey,  Fauntleroy,  and 
Graham  ?" 

"Whv  do  vou  ask?" 


THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS.  407 

"Answer  my  question,  and  you  will  know!" 

"  Very  well,  I  do  bank  with  Marsh,  Stracey,  Fauntle- 
roy,  and  Graham — and  \vhat  then  ?" 

"  Draw  out  every  farthing  of  balance  you  have  got  be- 
fore the  bank  closes  at  five  to-day." 

I  stared  at  him  in  speechless  amazement.  The  words, 
for  an  instant,  absolutely  petrified  me. 

"  Stare  as  much  as  you  like,"  he  proceeded  coolly,  "  I 
mean  what  I  say.  Look  at  your  clock  there.  In  twenty 
minutes  it  will  strike  five,  and  the  bank  will  be  shut. 
Draw  out  every  farthing,  I  tell  you  again,  and  look  sharp 
about  it." 

"  Draw  out  my  money !"  I  exclaimed,  partially  recov- 
ering myself.  "  Are  you  in  your  right  senses  ?  Do 
you  know  that  the  firm  I  bank  with  represents  one  of  the 
first  houses  in  the  world  ?  What  do  you  mean — you, 
who  are  a  total  stranger  to  me — by  taking  this  extraor- 
dinary interest  in  my  affairs?  If  you  want  me  to  act  on 
your  advice,  why  don't  you  explain  yourself?" 

"  I  have  explained  myself.  Act  on  my  advice  or  not, 
just  as  you  like.  It  don't  matter  to  me.  I  have  done 
what  I  promised,  and  there's  an  end  of  it." 

He  turned  to  the  door.  The  minute-hand  of  the  clock 
was  getting  on  from  the  twenty  minutes  to  the  quarter. 

"  Done  what  you  promised  ?"  I  repeated,  getting  up  to 
stop  him. 

"  Yes,"  he  said,  with  his  hand  on  the  lock.  "  I  have 
given  my  message.  Whatever  happens,  remember  that. 
Good-afternoon." 

He  was  gone  before  I  could  speak  again. 

I  tried  to  call  after  him,  but  my  speech  suddenly  failed 
me.  It  was  very  foolish,  it  was  very  unaccountable,  but 
there  was  something  in  the  man's  last  words  which  had 
more  than  half  frightened  me. 

I  looked  at  the  clock.  The  minute-hand  was  on  the 
quarter, 


408  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

My  office  was  just  far  enough  from  the  bank  to  make 
it  necessary  for  me  to  decide  on  the  instant.  If  I  had 
had  time  to  think,  I  am  perfectly  certain  that  I  should 
not  have  profited  by  the  extraordinary  warning  that  had 
just  been  addressed  to  me.  The  suspicious  appearance 
and  manners  of  the  stranger ;  the  outrageous  improbabil- 
ity of  the  inference  against  the  credit  of  the  bank  toward 
Avhich  his  words  pointed ;  the  chance  that  some  under- 
hand attempt  was  being  made,  by  some  enemy  of  mine, 
to  frighten  me  into  embroiling  myself  with  one  of  my 
best  friends,  through  showing  an  ignorant  distrust  of  the 
firm  with  which  he  was  associated  as  partner — all  these 
considerations  would  unquestionably  have  occurred  to 
me  if  I  could  have  found  time  for  reflection ;  and,  as  a 
necessary  consequence,  not  one  farthing  of  my  balance 
would  have  been  taken  from  the  keeping  of  the  bank  on 
that  memorable  day. 

As  it  was,  I  had  just  time  enough  to  act,  and  not  a 
spare  moment  for  thinking.  Some  heavy  payments  made 
at  the  beginning  of  the  week  had  so  far  decreased  my 
balance  that  the  sum  to  my  credit  in  the  banking-book 
barely  reached  fifteen  hundred  pounds.  I  snatched  up 
my  check-book,  wrote  a  draft  for  the  whole  amount,  and 
ordered  one  of  my  clerks  to  run  to  the  bank  and  get  it 
cashed  before  the  doors  closed.  What  impulse  urged 
me  on,  except  the  blind  impulse  of  hurry  and  bewilder- 
ment, I  can't  say.  I  acted  mechanically,  under  the  influ- 
ence of  the  vague  inexplicable  fear  which  the  man's  ex- 
traordinary parting  words  had  aroused  in  me,  without 
stopping  to  analyze  my  own  sensations — almost  without 
knowing  what  I  was  about.  In  three  minutes  from  the 
time  when  the  stranger  had  closed  my  door  the  clerk 
had  started  for  the  bank,  and  I  was  alone  again  in  my 
room,  with  my  hands  as  cold  as  ice  and  my  head  all  in  a/ 
whirl. 


THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS.  409 

I  did  not  recover  my  control  over  myself  until  the  clerk 
came  back  with  the  notes  in  his  hand.  He  had  just  got 
to  the  bank  in  the  nick  of  time.  As  the  cash  for  my 
draft  was  handed  to  him  over  the  counter,  the  clock 
struck  five,  and  he  heard  the  order  given  to  close  the 
doors. 

When  I  had  counted  the  bank-notes  and  had  locked 
them  up  in  the  safe,  my  better  sense  seemed  to  come 
back  to  me  on  a  sudden.  Never  have  I  reproached  my- 
self before  or  since  as  I  reproached  myself  at  that  mo- 
ment. What  sort  of  return  had  I  made  for  Mr.  Faunt- 
leroy's  fatherly  kindness  to  me  ?  I  had  insulted  him  by 
the  meanest,  the  grossest  distrust  of  the  honor  and  the 
credit  of  his  house,  and  that  on  the  word  of  an  absolute 
stranger,  of  a  vagabond,  if  ever  there  was  one  yet.  It 
was  madness — downright  madness  in  any  man  to  have 
acted  as  I  had  done.  I  could  not  account  for  my  own 
inconceivably  thoughtless  proceeding.  I  could  hardly 
believe  in  it  myself.  I  opened  the  safe  and  looked  at 
the  bank-notes  again.  I  locked  it  once  more,  and  flung 
the  key  down  on  the  table  in  a  fury  of  vexation  against 
myself.  There  the  money  was,  upbraiding  me  with  my 
own  inconceivable  folly,  telling  me  in  the  plainest  terms 
that  I  had  risked  depriving  myself  of  my  best  and  kind- 
est friend  henceforth  and  forever. 

It  wras  necessary  to  do  something  at  once  toward 
making  all  the  atonement  that  lay  in  my  power.  I  felt 
that,  as  soon  as.  I  began  to  cool  down  a  little.  There 
was  but  one  plain,  straightforward  way  left  now  out  of 
the  scrape  in  which  I  had  been  mad  enough  to  involve 
myself.  I  took  my  hat,  and,  without  stopping  an  instant 
to  hesitate,  hurried  off  to  the  bank  to  make  a  clean  breast 
of  it  to  Mr.  Fauntleroy. 

When  I  knocked  at  the  private  door  and  asked  for 
him,  I  was  told  that  he  had  not  been  at  the  bank  for  the 


410  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

last  two  days.  One  of  the  other  partners  was  there, 
however,  and  was  working  at  that  moment  in  his  own 
room. 

I  sent  in  my  name  at  once,  and  asked  to  see  him.  He 
and  I  were  little  better  than  strangers  to  each  other,  and 
the  interview  was  likely  to  be,  on  that  account,  unspeak- 
ably embarrassing  and  humiliating  on  my  side.  Still, 
I  could  not  go  home.  I  could  not  endure  the  inaction 
of  the  next  day,  the  Sunday,  without  having  done  my 
best  on  the  spot  to  repair  the  error  into  which  my  own 
folly  had  led  me.  Uncomfortable  as  I  felt  at  the  pros- 
pect of  the  approaching  interview,  I  should  have  been 
far  more  uneasy  in  my  mind  if  the  partner  had  declined 
to  see  me. 

To  my  relief,  the  bank  porter  returned  with  a  message 
requesting  me  to  walk  in. 

What  particular  form  my  explanations  and  apologies 
took  when  I  tried  to  offer  them  is  more  than  I  can  tell 
now.  I  was  so  confused  and  distressed  that  I  hardly 
knew  what  I  was  talking  about  at  the  time.  The  one 
circumstance  which  I  remember  clearly  is  that  I  was 
ashamed  to  refer  to  my  interview  with  the  strange  man, 
and  that  I  tried  to  account  for  my  sudden  withdrawal 
of  my  balance  by  referring  it  to  some  inexplicable  panic, 
caused  by  mischievous  reports  which  I  was  unable  to 
trace  to  their  source,  and  which,  for  any  thing  I  knew 
to  the  contrary,  might,  after  all,  have  been  only  started 
in  jest.  Greatly  to  my  surprise,  the  partner  did  not 
seem  to  notice  the  lamentable  lameness  of  my  excuses, 
and  did  not  additionally  confuse  me  by  asking  any  ques- 
tions. A  weary,  absent  look;  which  I  had  observed  on 
his  face  when  I  came  in,  remained  on  it  while  I  was 
speaking.  It  seemed  to  be  an  effort  to  him  even  to  keep 
up  the  appearance  of  listening  to  me ;  and  when,  at  last, 
I  fairly  broke  down  in  the  middle  of  a  sentence,  and  gave 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  411 

up  the  hope  of  getting  any  farther,  all  the  answer  he 
gave  me  was  comprised  in  these  few  civil  commonplace 
words : 

"Never  mind,  Mr. Trowbridge ;  pray  don't  think  of 
apologizing.  We  arc  all  liable  to  make  mistakes.  Say 
nothing  more  about  it,  and  bring  the  money  back  on 
Monday  if  you  still  honor  us  with  your  confidence." 

He  looked  down  at  his  papers  as  if  he  was  anxious  to 
be  alone  again,  and  I  had  no  alternative,  of  course,  but 
to  take  my  leave  immediately.  I  went  home,  feeling  a 
little  easier  in  my  mind  now  that  I  had  paved  the  way 
for  making  the  best  practical  atonement  in  my  power  by 
bringing  my  balance  back  the  first  thing  on  Monday 
morning.  Still,  I  passed  a  weary  day  on  Sunday,  re- 
flecting, sadly  enough,  that  I  had  not  yet  made  my  peace 
with  Mr.  Fauntleroy.  My  anxiety  to  set  myself  right 
with  my  generous  friend  was  so  intense  that  I  risked  in- 
truding myself  on  his  privacy  by  calling  at  his  town  res- 
idence on  the  Sunday.  He  was  not  there,  and  his  serv- 
ant could  tell  me  nothing  of  his  whereabouts.  There 
was  no  help  for  it  now  but  to  wait  till  his  week-day  du- 
ties brought  him  back  to  the  bank. 

I  went  to  business  on  Monday  morning  half  an  hour 
earlier  than  iisual,  so  great  was  my  impatience  to  restore 
the  amount  of  that  unlucky  draft  to  my  account  as  soon 
as  possible  after  the  bank  opened. 

On  entering  my  office,  I  stopped  with  a  startled  feel- 
ing just  inside  the  door.  Something  serious  had  hap- 
pened. The  clerks,  instead  of  being  at  their  desks  as 
usual,  Avere  all  huddled  together  in  a  group,  talking  to 
each  other  with  blank  faces.  When  they  saw  me,  they 
fell  back  behind  my  managing  man,  who  stepped  forward 
with  a  circular  in  his  hand. 

"  Have  you  heard  the  news,  sir  ?"  he  said. 

"  No.     What  is  it  ?" 

18* 


412  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

He  handed  me  the  circular.  My  heart  gave  one  vio- 
lent throb  the  instant  I  looked  at  it.  I  felt  myself  turn 
pale ;  I  felt  my  knees  trembling  under  me. 

Marsh,  Stracey,  Fauntleroy,  and  Graham  had  stopped 
payment. 

"The  circular  has  not  been  issued  more  than  half  an 
hour,"  continued  my  managing  clerk.  "I  have  just 
come  from  the  bank,  sir.  The  doors  are  shut;  there  is 
no  doubt  about  it.  Marsh  and  Company  have  stopped 
this  morning." 

I  hardly  heard  him ;  I  hardly  knew  Avho  was  talking 
to  me.  My  strange  visitor  of  the  Saturday  had  taken 
instant  possession  of  all  my  thoughts,  and  his  words  of 
warning  seemed  to  be  sounding  once  more  in  my  ears. 
This  man  had  known  the  true  condition  of  the  bank 
,vhen  not  another  soul  outside  the  doors  was  aware  of 
it!  The  last  draft  paid  across  the  counter  of  that  ruin- 
ed house,  when  the  doors  closed  011  Saturday,  was  the 
draft  that  I  had  so  bitterly  reproached  myself  for  draw- 
ing; the  one  balance  saved  from  the  wreck  was  my 
balance.  Where  had  the  stranger  got  the  information 
that  had  saved  me?  and  why  had  he  brought  it  to  my 
ears  ? 

I  wras  still  groping,  like  a  man  in  the  dark,  for  an  an- 
swer to  those  two  questions — I  was  still  bewildered  by 
the  unfathomable  mystery  of  doubt  into  which  they  had 
plunged  me — when  the  discovery  of  the  stopping  of  the 
bank  was  followed  almost  immediately  by  a  second 
shock,  far  more  dreadful,  far  heavier  to  bear,  so  far  as  I 
was  concerned,  than  the  first. 

While  I  and  my  clerks  were  still  discussing  the  failure 
of  the  firm,  two  mercantile  men,  who  were  friends  of 
mine,  ran  into  the  office,  and  overwhelmed  us  with  the 
news  that  one  of  the  partners  had  been  arrested  for  forg- 
ery. Never  shall  I  forget  the  terrible  Monday  morning 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  413 

those  tidings  reached  me,  and  when  I  knew  that 
the  partner  was  Mr.  Fauntleroy. 

I  was  true  to  him — I  can  honestly  say  I  was  true  to 
my  belief  in  my  generous  friend — when  that  fearful  news 
reached  me.  My  fellow-merchants  had  got  all  the  par- 
ticulars of  the  arrest.  They  told  me  that  two  of  Mr. 
Fauntleroy's  fellow-trustees  had  come  up  to  London  to 
make  arrangements  about  selling  out  some  stock.  On 
inquiring  for  Mr.  Fauntleroy  at  the  banking-house,  they 
had  been  informed  that  he  wras  not  there ;  and,  after  leav- 
ing a  message  for  him,  they  had  gone  into  the  city  to 
make  an  appointment  with  their  stock-broker  for  a  future 
day,  when  their  fellow-trustee  might  be  able  to  attend. 
The  stock-broker  volunteered  to  make  certain  business  in- 
quiries on  the  spot,  with  a  view  to  saving  as  much  time  as 
possible,  and  left  them  at  his  office  to  await  his  return.  Pie 
came  back,  looking  very  much  amazed,  with  the  inform- 
ation that  the  stock  had  been  sold  out  down  to  the  last 
live  hundred  pounds.  The  affair  was  instantly  investi- 
gated ;  the  document  authorizing  the  selling  out  was  pro- 
duced ;  and  the  two  trustees  saw  on  it,  side  by  side  with 
Mr.  Fauntleroy's  signature,  the  forged  signatures  of  their 
own  names.  This  happened  on  the  Friday;  and  the 
trustees,  without  losing  a  moment,  sent  the  officers  of 
justice  in  pursuit  of  Mr.  Fauntleroy.  He  was  arrested, 
brought  up  before  the  magistrate,  and  remanded  on  the 
Saturday.  On  the  Monday  I  heard  from  my  friends  the 
particulars  which  I  have  just  narrated. 

But  the  events  of  that  one  morning  were  not  destined 
to  end  even  yet.  I  had  discovered  the  failure  of  the 
bank  and  the  arrest  of  Mr.  Fauntleroy.  I  was  next  to 
be  enlightened,  in  the  strangest  and  the  saddest  manner, 
on  the  difficult  question  of  his  innocence  or  his  guilt. 

Before  my  friends  had  left  my  office — before  I  had  ex- 
hausted the  arguments  which  my  gratitude  rather  than 


414  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

my  reason  suggested  to  me  in  favor  of  the  unhappy  pris- 
oner, a  note,  marked  immediate,  was  placed  hi  my  hands, 
which  silenced  me  the  instant  I  looked  at  it.  It  was 
written  from  the  prison  by  Mr.  Fauntleroy,  and  it  con- 
tained two  lines  only,  entreating  me  to  apply  for  the  nec- 
essary order,  and  to  go  and  see  him  immediately. 

I  shall  not  attempt  to  describe  the  flutter  of  expecta- 
tion, the  strange  mixture  of  dread  and  hope  that  agitated 
me  when  I  recognized  his  handwriting,  and  discovered 
what  it  was  that  he  desired  me  to  do.  I  obtained  the 
order  and  went  to  the  prison.  The  authorities,  knowing 
the  dreadful  situation  in  which  he  stood,  were  afraid  of 
his  attempting  to  destroy  himself,  and  had  set  two  men 
to  watch  him.  One  came  out  as  they  opened  his  cell 
door.  The  other,  who  was  bound  not  to  leave  him,  very 
delicately  and  considerately  affected  to  be  looking  out 
of  window  the  moment  I  was  shown  in. 

He  was  sitting  on  the  side  of  his  bed,  with  his  head 
drooping  and  his  hands  hanging  listlessly  over  his  knees 
when  I  first  caught  sight  of  him.  At  the  sound  of  my 
approach  he  started  to  his  feet,  and,  without  speaking  a 
word,  flung  both  his  arms  round  my  neck. 

My  heart  swelled  up. 

"  Tell  me  it's  not  true,  sir !  For  God's  sake,  tell  me 
it's  not  true !"  was  all  I  could  say  to  him. 

He  never  answered — oh  me !  he  never  answered,  and 
he  turned  away  his  face. 

There  was  one  dreadful  moment  of  silence.  He  still 
held  his  arms  round  my  neck,  and  on  a  sudden  he  put 
his  lips  close  to  my  ear. 

"  Did  you  get  your  money  out  ?"  he  whispered. 
"  Were  you  in  time  on  Saturday  afternoon  ?" 

I  broke  free  from  him  in  the  astonishment  of  hearing 
those  words. 

"  What !"  I  cried  out  loud,  forgetting  the  third  person 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  415 

at  the  window.     "That   man  who  brought  the   mes- 
sage— " 

"  Hush !"  he  said,  putting  his  hand  on  my  lips.  "  There 
was  no  better  man  to  be  found,  after  the  officers  had 
taken  me — I  know  no  more  about  him  than  you  do — I 
paid  him  Avell,  as  a  chance  messengei',  and  risked  his 
cheating  me  of  his  errand." 

O 

"  You  sent  him,  then  !" 

"  I  sent  him." 

My  story  is  over,  gentlemen.  There  is  no  need  for 
me  to  tell  you  that  Mr.  Fauntleroy  was  found  guilty,  and 
that  he  died  by  the  hangman's  hand.  It  was  in  my  pow- 
er to  soothe  his  last  moments  in  this  world  by  taking  on 
myself  the  arrangement  of  some  of  his  private  affairs, 
which,  while  they  remained  unsettled,  weighed  heavily 
on  his  mind.  They  had  no  connection  with  the  crimes 
he  had  committed,  so  I  could  do  him  the  last  little  serv- 
ice he  was  ever  to  accept  at  my  hands  with  a  clear  con- 
science. 

I  say  nothing  in  defense  of  his  character — nothing  in 
palliation  of  the  offense  for  which  he  suffered.  But  I 
can  not  forget  that  in  the  time  of  his  most  fearful  ex- 
tremity, when  the  strong  arm  of  the  law  had  already 
seized  him,  he  thought  of  the  young  man  whose  humble 
fortunes  he  had  helped  to  build ;  whose  heartfelt  grati- 
tude he  had  fairly  won ;  whose  simple  faith  he  was  re- 
solved never  to  betray.  I  leave  it  to  greater  intellects 
than  mine  to  reconcile  the  anomaly  of  his  reckless  false- 
hood toward  others  and  his  steadfast  truth  toward  me. 
It  is  as  certain  as  that  we  sit  here  that  one  of  Fauntle- 
roy's  last  efforts  in  this  world  was  the  effort  he  made  to 
preserve  me  from  being  a  loser  by  the  trust  that  I  had 
placed  in  him.  There  is  the  secret  of  my  strange  ten- 
derness for  the  memory  of  a  felon  ;  that  is  why  the  word 
villain  does  somehow  still  grate  on  my  heart  when  I  hear 


416  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

it  associated  with  the  name — the  disgraced  name,  I  grant 
you — of  the  forger  Fauntleroy.  Pass  the  bottles,  young 
gentlemen,  and  pardon  a  man  of  the  old  school  for  hav- 
ing so  long  interrupted  your  conversation  with  a  story 
of  the  old  time. 


THE  TENTH  DAY. 

» 

THE  storm  has  burst  on  us  in  its  full  fury.  Last  night 
the  stout  old  tower  rocked  on  its  foundations. 

I  hardly  ventured  to  hope  that  the  messenger  who 
brings  us  our  letters  from  the  village — the  postman,  as 
we  call  him — would  make  his  appearance  this  morning ; 
but  he  came  bravely  through  rain,  hail,  and  wind.  The 
old  pony  which  he  usually  rides  had  refused  to  face  the 
storm,  and,  sooner  than  disappoint  us,  our  faithful  post- 
man had  boldly  started  for  The  Glen  Tower  on  foot. 
All  his  early  life  had  been  passed  on  board  ship,  and,  at 
sixty  years  of  age,  he  had  battled  his  way  that  morning 
through  the  storm  on  shore  as  steadily  and  as  resolutely 
as  ever  he  had  battled  it  in  his  youth  through  the  storm 
at  sea. 

I  opened  the  post-bag  eagerly.  There  were  two  let- 
ters for  Jessie  from  young  lady  friends;  a  letter  for  Owen 
from  a  charitable  society  ;  a  letter  to  me  upon  business ; 
and — on  this  last  day,  of  all  others — no  newspaper ! 

I  sent  directly  to  the  kitchen  (where  the  drenched  and 
weary  postman  was  receiving  the  hospitable  attentions 
of  the  servants)  to  make  inquiries.  The  disheartening 
answer  returned  was  that  the  newspaper  could  not  have 
arrived  as  usual  by  the  morning's  post,  or  it  must  have 
been  put  into  the  bag  along  with  the  letters.  No  such 
accident  as  this  had  occurred,  except  on  one  former  oc- 
casion, since  the  beginning  of  the  year.  And  now,  on 
the  very  day  when  I  might  have  looked  confidently  for 
news  of  George's  ship,  when  the  state  of  the  weather 
made  the  finding  of  that  news  of  the  last  importance  to 


418  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

my  peace  of  mind,  the  paper,  by  some  inconceivable  fa- 
tality, had  failed  to  reach  me  !  If  there  had  been  the 
slightest  chance  of  borrowing  a  copy  in  the  village,  I 
should  have  gone  there  myself  through  the  tempest  to 
get  it.  If  there  had  been  the  faintest  possibility  of  com- 
municating in  that  frightful  weather,  with  the  distant 
county  town,  I  should  have  sent  there  or  gone  there  my- 
self. I  even  went  the  length  of  speaking  to  the  groom, 
an  old  servant  whom  I  knew  I  could  trust.  The  man 
stared  at  me  in  astonishment,  and  then  pointed  through 
the  window  to  the  blinding  hail  and  the  writhing  trees. 

"  No  horse  that  ever  was  foaled,  sir,"  he  said,  "  would 
face  that  for  long.  It's  a'most  a  miracle  that  the  post- 
man got  here  alive.  He  says  himself  that  he  dursn't  go 
back  again.  I'll  try  it,  sir,  if  you  order  me ;  but  if  an 
accident  happens,  please  to  remember,  whatever  becomes 
of  me,  that  I  warned  you  beforehand." 

It  was  only  too  plain  that  the  servant  was  right,  and 
I  dismissed  him.  What  I  suffered  from  that  one  accident 
of  the  missing  newspaper  I  am  ashamed  to  tell.  No  ed- 
ucated man  can  conceive  how  little  his  acquired  mental 
advantages  will  avail  him  against  his  natural  human  in- 
heritance of  superstition,  under  certain  circumstances  of 
fear  and  suspense,  until  he  has  passed  the  ordeal  in  his 
own  proper  person.  We  most  of  us  soon  arrive  at  a 
knowledge  of  the  extent  of  our  strength,  but  we  may 
pass  a  lifetime  and  be  still  ignorant  of  the  extent  of  our 
weakness. 

Up  to  this  time  I  had  preserved  self-control  enough  to 
hide  the  real  state  of  my  feelings  from  our  guest ;  but  the 
arrival  of  the  tenth  day,  and  the  unexpected  trial  it  had 
brought  with  it,  found  me  at  the  end  of  my  resources. 
Jessie's  acute  observation  soon  showed  her  that  some- 
thing had  gone  wrong,  and  she  questioned  me  on  the 
subject  directly.  31  y  mind  was  in  such  a  state  of  confu- 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  419 

sion  that  no  excuse  occurred  to  me.  I  left  her  precip- 
itately, and  entreated  Owen  and  Morgan  to  keep  her  in 
their  company,  and  out  of  mine,  for  the  rest  of  the  day. 
My  strength  to  preserve  my  son's  secret  had  failed  me, 
and  my  only  chance  of  resisting  the  betrayal  of  it  lay  in 
the  childish  resource  of  keeping  out  of  the  way.  I  shut 
myself  into  my  room  till  I  could  bear  it  no  longer.  I 
watched  my  opportunity,  and  paid  stolen  visits  over  and 
«>ver  again  to  the  barometer  in  the  hall.  I  mounted  to 
Morgan's  rooms  at  the  top  of  the  tower,  and  looked  out 
hopelessly  through  rain-mist  and  scud  for  signs  of  a  car- 
riage on  the  flooded  valley-road  below  us.  I  stole  down 
again  to  the  servants'  hall,  and  questioned  the  old  post- 
man (half  tipsy  by  this  time  with  restorative  mulled  ale) 
about  his  past  experience  of  storms  at  sea;  drew  him 
into  telling  long,  rambling,  wearisome  stories,  not  one 
tenth  part  of  which  I  heard  ;  and  left  him  with  my  nervous 
irritability  increased  tenfold  by  his  useless  attempts  to 
interest  and  inform  me.  Hour  by  hour,  all  through  that 
miserable  day,  I  opened  doors  and  windows  to  feel  for 
myself  the  capricious  changes  of  the  storm  from  worse  to 
better,  and  from  better  to  worse  again.  Now  I  sent 
once  more  for  the  groom,  when  it  looked  lighter;  and 
now  I  followed  him  hurriedly  to  the  stables,  to  counter- 
mand my  own  rash  orders.  My  thoughts  seemed  to 
drive  over  my  mind  as  the  rain  drove  over  the  earth ;  the 
confusion  within  me  was  the  image  in  little  of  the  might- 
ier turmoil  that  raged  outside. 

Before  we  assembled  at  the  dinner-table,  Owen  whis- 
pered to  me  that  he  had  made  my  excuses  to  our  guest, 
and  that  I  need  dread  nothing  more  than  a  few  friendly 
inquiries  about  my  health  when  I  saw  her  again.  The 
meal  was  dispatched  hastily  and  quietly.  Toward  dusk 
the  storm  began  to  lessen,  and  for  a  moment  the  idea  of 
sending  to  the  town  occurred  to  me  once  more.  But, 


420  THE  QUEEN*  OF  HEARTS. 

now  that  the  obstacle  of  weather  had  been  removed,  the 
obstacle  of  darkness  was  set  up  in  its  place.  I  felt  this ; 
I  felt  that  a  few  more  hours  Avould  decide  the  doubt 
about  George,  so  far  as  this  last  day  was  concerned,  and 
I  determined  to  wait  a  little  longer,  having  already 
waited  so  long.  My  resolution  was  the  more  speedily 
taken  in  this  matter,  as  I  had  now  made  up  my  mind,  in 
sheer  despair,  to  tell  my  son's  secret  to  Jessie  if  he  failed 
to  return  before  she  left  us.  My  reason  warned  me  that 
I  should  put  myself  and  my  guest  in  a  false  position  by 
taking  this  step,  but  something  stronger  than  my  reason 
forbade  me  to  let  her  go  back  to  the  gay  world  and  its 
temptations  without  first  speaking  to  her  of  George  in 
the  lamentable  event  of  George  not  being  present  to 
speak  for  himself. 

We  were  a  sad  and  silent  little  company  when  the 
clock  struck  eight  that  night,  and  Avhen  we  met  for  the 
last  time  to  hear  the  last  story.  The  shadow  of  the  ap- 
proaching farewell — itself  the  shade  of  the  long  farewell 
— rested  heavily  on  our  guest's  spirits.  The  gay  dresses 
Avhich  she  had  hitherto  put  on  to  honor  our  little  cere- 
mony were  all  packed  up,  and  the  plain  gown  she  wore 
kept  the  journey  of  the  morrow  cruelly  before  her  eyes 
and  ours.  A  quiet  melancholy  shed  its  tenderness  over 
her  bright  young  face  as  she  drew  the  last  number,  for 
form's  sake,  out  of  the  bowl,  and  handed  it  to  Owen  with 
a  faint  smile.  Even  our  positions  at  the  table  were  al- 
tered now.  Under  the  pretense  that  the  light  hurt  my 
eyes,  I  moved  back  into  a  dim  corner,  to  keep  my  anx- 
ious face  out  of  view.  Morgan,  looking  at  me  hard,  and 
muttering  under  his  breath,  "  Thank  Heaven,  I  never 
married !"  stole  his  chair  by  degrees,  with  rough,  silent 
kindness,  nearer  and  nearer  to  mine.  Jessie,  after  a  mo- 
ment's hesitation,  vacated  her  place  next,  and,  saying 
that  she  wanted  to  sit  close  to  one  of  us  on  the  farewell 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  421 

night,  took  a  chair  at  Owen's  side.  Sad !  sad !  we  had 
instinctively  broken  up  already,  so  far  as  our  places  at 
the  table  were  concerned,  before  the  reading  of  the  last 
story  had  so  much  as  begun. 

It  was  a  relief  when  Owen's  quiet  voice  stole  over  the 
weary  silence,  and  pleaded  for  our  attention  to  the  occu- 
pation of  the  night. 

"  Number  Six,"  he  said,  "  is  the  number  that  chance 
has  left  to  remain  till  the  last.  The  manuscript  to  which 
it  refers  is  not,  as  you  may  see,  in  my  handwriting.  It 
consists  entirely  of  passages  from  the  Diary  of  a  poor 
hard-working  girl — passages  which  tell  an  artless  story 
of  love  and  friendship  in  humble  life.  When  that  story 
has  come  to  an  end,  I  may  inform  you  how  I  became 
possessed  of  it.  If  I  did  so  now,  I  should  only  forestall 
one  important  part  of  the  interest  of  the  narrative.  I 
have  made  no  attempt  to  find  a  striking  title  for  it.  It 
is  called,  simply  and  plainly,  after  the  name  of  the  writer 
of  the  Diary — the  Story  of  Anne  Rodway." 

In  the  short  pause  that  Owen  made  before  he  began 
to  read,  I  listened  anxiously  for  the  sound  of  a  traveler's 
approach  outside.  At  short  intervals,  all  through  the 
story,  I  listened  and  listened  again.  Still,  nothing  caught 
my  ear  but  the  trickle  of  the  rain  and  the  rush  of  the 
sweeping  wind  through  the  valley,  sinking  gradually 
lower  and  lower  as  the  night  advanced. 


422  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 


BROTHER  OWEN'S  STORY 

OF 

ANNE    K  O  D  W  A  Y. 

[TAKEN  FKO.M  IIEK  HIARY.] 

*  *  *  MARCH  3d,  1840.  A  long  letter  to-day  from 
Robert,  which  surprised  and  vexed  me  so  that  I  have 
been  sadly  behindhand  with  my  work  ever  since.  He 
writes  in  worse  spirits  than  last  time,  and  absolutely  de- 
clares that  he  is  poorer  even  than  when  he  went  to 
America,  and  that  he  has  made  up  his  mind  to  come 
home  to  London. 

How  happy  I  should  be  at  this  news,  if  he  only  return- 
ed to  me  a  prosperous  man !  As  it  is,  though  I  love 
him  dearly,  I  can  not  look  forward  to  the  meeting  him 
again,  disappointed  and  broken  down,  and  poorer  than 
ever,  without  a  feeling  almost  of  dread  for  both  of  us. 
I  was  twenty-six  last  birthday  and  he  was  thirty-three, 
and  there  seems  less  chance  now  than  ever  of  our  being 
married.  It  is  all  I  can  do  to  keep  myself  by  my  needle; 
and  his  prospects,  since  he  failed  in  the  small  stationery 
business  three  years  ago,  are  worse,  if  possible,  than 
mine. 

Not  that  I  mind  so  much  for  myself;  women,  in  all 
ways  of  life,  and  especially  in  my  dress-making  way, 
learn,  I  think,  to  be  more  patient  than  men.  What  I 
dread  is  Robert's  despondency,  and  the  hard  struggle  he 
will  have  in  this  cruel  city  to  get  his  bread,  let  alone 
making  money  enough  to  marry  me.  So  little  as  poor 


THK    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  423 

people  want  to  set  up  in  housekeeping  and  bo  happy  to- 
gether, it  seems  hard  that  they  can't  get  it  Avhen  they 
are  honest  and  hearty,  and  willing  to  work.  The  cler- 
gyman said  in  his  sermon  last  Sunday  evening  that  all 
things  were  ordered  for  the  best,  and  we  are  all  put  into 
the  stations  in  life  that  are  properest  for  us.  I  suppose 
he  was  right,  being  a  very  clever  gentleman  who  fills  the 
church  to  crowding;  but  I  think  I  should  have  under- 
stood him  better  if  I  had  not  been  very  hungry  at  the 
time,  in  consequence  of  my  own  station  in  life  being 
nothing  but  plain  needlewoman. 

March  4th.  Mary  Mallinson  came  down  to  my  room 
to  take  a  cup  of  tea  with  me.  I  read  her  bits  of  Rob- 
ert's letter,  to  show  her  that,  if  she  has  her  troubles,  I 
have  mine  too ;  but  I  could  not  succeed  in  cheering  her. 
She  says  she  is  born  to  misfortune,  and  that,  as  long  back 
as  she  can  remember,  she  has  never  had  the  least  morsel 
of  luck  to  be  thankful  for.  I  told  her  to  go  and  look  in 
my  glass,  and  to  say  if  she  had  nothing  to  be  thankful 
for  then  ;  for  Mary  is  a  very  pretty  girl,  and  would  look 
still  prettier  if  she  could  be  more  cheerful  and  dress 
neater.  However,  my  compliment  did  no  good.  She 
rattled  her  spoon  impatiently  in  her  tea-cup,  and  said, 
"  If  I  was  only  as  good  a  hand  at  needle- work  as  you 
are,  Anne,  I  would  change  faces  with  the  ugliest  girl  in 
London."  "  Not  you !"  says  I,  laughing.  She  looked 
at  me  for  a  moment,  and  shook  her  head,  and  was  out  of 
the  room  before  I  could  get  up  and  stop  her.  She  al- 
ways runs  off  in  that  way  when  she  is  going  to  cry,  hav- 
ing a  kind  of  pride  about  letting  other  people  see  her  in 
tears. 

March  5th.  A  fright  about  Mary.  I  had  not  seen  her 
all  day,  as  she  does  not  work  at  the  same  place  where  I 


424  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

do ;  and  in  the  evening  she  never  came  down  to  have 
tea  with  me,  or  sent  me  word  to  go  to  her;  so,  just  be- 
fore I  went  to  bed,  I  ran  up  stairs  to  say  good-night. 

She  did  not  answer  when  I  knocked  ;  and  when  I 
stepped  softly  in  the  room  I  saw  her  in  bed,  asleep,  with 
her  work  not  half  done,  lying  about  the  room  in  the  un- 
tidiest  way.  There  was  nothing  remarkable  in  that,  and 
I  was  just  going  away  on  tiptoe,  when  a  tiny  bottle  and 
wine-glass  on  the  chair  by  her  bedside  caught  my  eye. 
I  thought  she  was  ill  and  had  been  taking  physic,  and 
looked  at  the  bottle.  It  was  marked  in  large  letters, 
"  Laudanum — Poison." 

My  heart  gave  a  jump  as  if  it  was  going  to  fly  out  of 
me.  I  laid  hold  of  her  with  both  hands,  and  shook  her 
with  all  ray  might.  She  was  sleeping  heavily,  and  woke 
slowly,  as  it  seemed  to  me — but  still  she  did  wake.  I 
tried  to  pull  her  out  of  bed,  having  heard  that  people 
ought  to  be  always  walked  up  and  down  when  they  have 
taken  laudanum ;  but  she  resisted,  and  pushed  me  away 
violently. 

"  Anne !"  says  she,  in  a  fright.  "  For  gracious  sake, 
what's  come  to  you !  Are  you  out  of  your  senses  ?" 

"Oh,  Mary !  Mary  !"  says  I,  holding  up  the  bottle  be- 
fore her,  "  if  I  hadn't  come  in  when  I  did — '  And  I 
laid  hold  of  her  to  shake  her  again. 

She  looked  puzzled  at  me  for  a  moment — then  smiled 
(the  first  time  I  had  seen  her  do  so  for  many  a  long  day) 
— then  put  her  arms  round  my  neck. 

"  Don't  be  frightened  about  me,  Anne,"  she  says ;  "  I 
am  not  worth  it,  and  there  is  no  need." 

"No  need!"  says  I,  out  of  breath — "no  need,  when 
the  bottle  has  got  poison  marked  on  it !" 

"  Poison,  dear,  if  you  take  it  all,"  says  Mary,  looking 
at  me  very  tenderly,  "  and  a  night's  rest  if  you  only  take 
a  little."  ' 


THE    QUEEN    OP    HEARTS.  425 

I  watched  her  for  a  moment,  doubtful  whether  I  ought 
to  believe  what  she  said  or  to  alarm  the  house.  But 
there  was  no  sleepiness  now  in  her  eyes,  and  nothing 
drowsy  in  her  voice ;  and  she  sat  up  in  bed  quite  easily, 
without  any  thing  to  support  her. 

"  You  have  given  me  a  dreadful  fright,  Mary,"  says  I, 
sitting  down  by  her  in  the  chair,  and  beginning  by  this 
time  to  feel  rather  faint  after  being  startled  so. 

She  jumped  out  of  bed  to  get  me  a  drop  of  water,  and 
kissed  me,  and  said  how  sorry  she  was,  and  how  unde- 
serving of  so  much  interest  being  taken  in  her.  At  the 
same  time,  she  tried  to  possess  herself  of  the  laudanum- 
bottle  which  I  still  kept  cuddled  up  tight  in  my  own 
hands. 

"No,"  says  I.  "You  have  got  into  a  low-spirited, 
despairing  way.  I  won't  trust  you  with  it." 

"  I  am  afraid  I  can't  do  without  it,"  says  Mary,  in  her 
usual  quiet,  hopeless  voice.  "What  with  work  that  I 
can't  get  through  as  I  ought,  and  troubles  that  I  can't 
help  thinking  of,  sleep  won't  come  to  me  unless  I  take  a 
few  drops  out  of  that  bottle.  Don't  keep  it  away  from 
me,  Anne ;  it's  the  only  thing  in  the  world  that  makes 
me  forget  myself." 

"Forget  yourself!"  says  I.  "You  have  no  right  to 
talk  in  that  way,  at  your  age.  There's  something  horri- 
ble in  the  notion  of  a  girl  of  eighteen  sleeping  with  a 
bottle  of  laudanum  by  her  bedside  every  night.  We  all 
of  us  have  our  troubles.  Haven't  I  got  mine  ?" 

"  You  can  do  twice  the  work  I  can,  twice  as  well  as 
me,"  says  Mary.  "  You  are  never  scolded  and  rated  at 
for  awkwardness  with  your  needle,  and  I  always  am. 
You  can  pay  for  your  room  every  week,  and  I  am  three 
weeks  in  debt  for  mine." 

"  A  little  more  practice,"  says  I,  "  and  a  little  more 
courage,  and  you  will  soon  do  better.  You  have  got  all 
your  life  before  you — " 


426  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

"  I  wish  I  was  at  the  end  of  it,"  says  she,  breaking  in. 
"  I  am  alone  in  the  world,  and  my  life's  no  good  to  me." 

"  You  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  yourself  for  saying  so," 
says  I.  "Haven't  you  got  me  for  a  friend.  Didn't  I 
take  a  fancy  to  you  when  first  you  left  your  step-mother, 
and  came  to  lodge  in  this  house  ?  And  haven't  I  been 
sisters  with  you  ever  since?  Suppose  you  are  alone  in 
the  world,  am  I  much  better  off?  I'm  an  orphan  like 
you.  I've  almost  as  many  things  in  pawn  as  you ;  and, 
if  your  pockets  are  empty,  mine  have  only  got  ninepence 
in  them,  to  last  me  for  all  the  rest  of  the  week." 

"Your  father  and  mother  were  honest  people,"  says 
Mary,  obstinately.  "  My  mother  ran  away  from  home, 
and  died  in  a  hospital.  My  father  was  always  drunk, 
and  always  beating  me.  My  step-mother  is  as  good  as 
dead,  for  all  she  cares  about  me.  My  only  brother  is 
thousands  of  miles  away  in  foreign  parts,  and  never 
writes  to  me,  and  never  helps  me  with  a  farthing.  My 
sweetheart — " 

She  stopped,  and  the  red  flew  into  her  face.  I  knew, 
if  she  went  on  that  way,  she  would  only  get  to  the  sad- 
dest part  of  her  sad  story,  and  give  both  herself  and  me 
unnecessary  pain. 

"My  sweetheart  is  too  poor  to  marry  me,  Mary,"  I 
said,  "so  I'm  not  so  much  to  be  envied  even  there.  But 
let's  give  over  disputing  which  is  worst  off.  Lie  down 
in  bed,  and  let  me  tuck  you  up.  I'll  put  a  stitch  or  two 
into  that  work  of  yours  while  you  go  to  sleep." 

Instead  of  doing  what  I  told  her,  she  burst  out  crying 
(being  very  like  a  child  in  some  of  her  ways),  and  hugged 
me  so  tight  round  the  neck  that  she  quite  hurt  me.  I 
let  her  go  on  till  she  had  worn  herself  out,  and  was 
obliged  to  lie  down.  Even  then,  her  last  few  words  be- 
.fore  she  dropped  off  to  sleep  were  such  as  I  was  half 
sorry,  half  frightened  to  hear. 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  427 

"  I  won't  plague  you  long,  Anne,"  she  said.  "  I 
haven't  courage  to  go  out  of  the  world  as  you  seem  to 
tear  I  shall ;  but  I  began  my  life  wretchedly,  and  wretch- 
edly I  am  sentenced  to  end  it." 

It  was  of  no  use  lecturing  her  again,  for  she  closed  her 
eyes. 

I  tucked  her  up  as  neatly  as  I  could,  and  put  her  pet- 
ticoat over  her,  for  the  bedclothes  were  scanty,  and  her 
hands  felt  cold.  She  looked  so  pretty  and  delicate  as 
she  fell  asleep  that  it  quite  made  my  heart  ache  to  see 
her,  after  such  talk  as  we  had  held  together.  I  just 
waited  long  enough  to  be  quite  sure  that  she  was  in  the 
land  of  dreams,  then  emptied  the  horrible  laudanum-bot- 
tle into  the  grate,  took  up  her  half-done  work,  and,  going 
out  softly,  left  her  for  that  night. 

March  6th.  Sent  off  a  long  letter  to  Robert,  begging 
and  entreating  him  not  to  be  so  down-hearted,  and  not 
to  leave  America  without  making  another  effort.  I  told 
him  I  could  bear  any  trial  except  the  wretchedness  of 
seeing  him  come  back  a  helpless,  broken-down  man,  try- 
ing uselessly  to  begin  life  again  when  too  old  for  a 
change. 

It  was  not  till  after  I  had  posted  my  own  letter,  and 
read  over  parts  of  Robert's  again,  that  the  suspicion  sud- 
denly floated  across  me,  for  the  first  time,  that  he  might 
have  sailed  for  England  immediately  after  writing  to  me. 
There  were  expressions  in  the  letter  which  seemed  to  in- 
dicate that  he  had  some  such  headlong  project  in  his 
mind.  And  yet,  surely,  if  it  were  so,  I  ought  to  have  no- 
ticed them  at  the  first  reading.  I  can  only  hope  I  am 
wrong  in  my  present  interpretation  of  much  of  what  he 
has  written  to  me — hope  it  earnestly  for  both  our  sakes. 

This  has  been  a  doleful  day  for  me.  I  have  been  un- 
easy about  Robert  and  uneasy  about  Mary.  My  mind 

19 


428  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

is  haunted  by  those  last  words  of  hers :  "  I  began  my 
life  wretchedly,  and  wretchedly  I  am  sentenced  to  end 
it."  Her  usual  melancholy  way  of  talking  never  pro- 
duced the  same  impression  on  me  that  I  feel  now.  Per- 
haps the  discovery  of  the  laudanum-bottle  is  the  cause 
of  this.  I  would  give  many  a  hard  day's  work  to  know 
what  to  do  for  Mary's  good.  My  heart  wanned  to  her 
when  we  first  met  in  the  same  lodging-house  two  years 
ago,  and,  although  I  am  not  one  of  the  over-affectionate 
sort  myself,  I  feel  as  if  I  could  go  to  the  world's  end  to 
serve  that  girl.  Yet,  strange  to  say,  if  I  was  asked  why 
I  was  so  fond  of  her,  I  don't  think  I  should  know  how  to 
answer  the  question. 

March  7th.  I  am  almost  ashamed  to  write  it  down, 
even  in  this  journal,  which  no  eyes  but  mine  ever  look 
on  ;  yet  I  must  honestly  confess  to  myself  that  here  I 
am,  at  nearly  one  in  the  morning,  sitting  up  in  a  state 
of  serious  uneasiness  because  Mary  has  not  yet  come 
home. 

I  walked  with  her  this  moniing  to  the  place  where  she 
works,  and  tried  to  lead  her  into  talking  of  the  relations 
she  has  got  who  are  still  alive.  My  motive  in  doing  this 
was  to  see  if  she  dropped  any  tiling  in  the  course  of  con- 
versation which  might  suggest  a  way  of  helping  her  in- 
terests with  those  who  are  bound  to  give  her  all  reason- 
able assistance.  But  the  little  I  could  get  her  to  say  to 
me  led  to  nothing.  Instead  of  answering  my  questions 
about  her  step-mother  and  her  brother,  she  persisted  at 
first,  in  the  strangest  way,  in  talking  of  her  father,  who 
was  dead  and  gone,  and  of  one  Noah  Truscott,  who  had 
been  the  worst  of  all  the  bad  friends  he  had,  and  had 
taught  him  to  drink  and  game.  When  I  did  get  her  to 
speak  of  her  brother,  she  only  knew  that  he  had  gone 
out  to  a  place  called  Assam,  where  they  grew  tea,  How 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  429 

he  was  doing,  or  whether  he  was  there  still,  she  did  not 
seem  to  know,  never  having  heard  a  word  from  him  for 
years  and  years  past. 

As  for  her  step-mother,  Mary  not  unnaturally  flew  into 
a  passion  the  moment  I  spoke  of  her.  She  keeps  an  eat- 
ing-house at  Hammersmith,  and  could  have  given  Mary 
good  employment  in  it ;  but  she  seems  always  to  have 
hated  her,  and  to  have  made  her  life  so  wretched  with 
abuse  and  ill  usage  that  she  had  no  refuge  left  but  to  go 
away  from  home,  and  do  her  best  to  make  a  living  for 
herself.  Her  husband  (Mary's  father)  appears  to  have 
behaved  badly  to  her,  and,  after  his  death,  she  took  the 
Avicked  course  of  revenging  herself  on  her  step-daughter. 
I  felt,  after  this,  that  it  was  impossible  Mary  could  go 
back,  and  that  it  was  the  hard  necessity  of  her  position, 
as  it  is  of  mine,  that  she  should  struggle  on  to  make  a 
decent  livelihood  without  assistance  from  any  of  her  re- 
lations. I  confessed  as  much  as  this  to  her  ;  but  I  added 
that  I  would  try  to  get  her  employment  with  the  persons 
for  whom  I  work,  who  pay  higher  wages,  and  show  a 
little  more  indulgence  to  those  under  them  than  the  peo- 
ple to  whom  she  is  now  obliged  to  look  for  support. 

I  spoke  much  more  confidently  than  I  felt  about  being 
able  to  do  this,  and  left  her,  as  I  thought,  in  better  spiiits 
than  usual.  She  promised  to  be  back  to-night  to  tea  at 
nine  o'clock,  and  now  it  is  nearly  one  in  the  morning, 
and  she  is  not  home  yet.  If  it  was  any  other  girl  I 
should  not  feel  uneasy,  for  I  should  make  up  my  mind 
that  t]iere  was  extra  work  to  be  done  in  a  hurry,  and 
that  they  were  keeping  her  late,  and  I  should  go  to  bed. 
But  Mary  is  so  unfortunate  in  every  thing  that  happens 
to  her,  and  her  own  melancholy  talk  about  herself  keeps 
hanging  on  my  mind  so,  that  I  have  fears  on  her  account 
which  would  not  distress  me  about  any  one  else.  It 
seems  inexcusably  sillv  to  think  such  a  thing,  much  more 


430  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

to  write  it  down ;  but  I  have  a  kind  of  nervous  dread 
upon  me  that  some  accident — 

What  does  that  loud  knocking  at  the  street  door 
mean  ?  And  those  voices  and  heavy  footsteps  outside  ? 
Some  lodger  who  has  lost  his  key,  I  suppose.  And  yet, 
my  heart —  What  a  coward  I  have  become  all  of  a 
sudden ! 

More  knocking  and  louder  voices.  I  must  run  to  the 
door  and  see  what  it  is.  Oh  Mary !  Mary !  I  hope  I  am 
not  going  to  have  another  fright  about  you,  but  I  feel 
sadly  like  it. 

March  8th. 
March  9th. 
March  10th. 

March  llth.  Oh  me!  all  the  troubles  I  have  ever  had 
in  my  life  are  as  nothing  to  the  trouble  I  am  in  now. 
For  three  days  I  have  not  been  able  to  Avrite  a  single 
line  in  this  journal,  which  I  have  kept  so  regularly  ever 
since  I  was  a  girl.  For  three  days  I  have  not  once 
thought  of  Robert — I,  who  am  always  thinking  of  him 
at  other  times. 

My  poor,  dear,  unhappy  Mary !  the  worst  I  feared  for 
you  on  that  night  when  I  sat  up  alone  was  far  below  the 
dreadful  calamity  that  has  really  happened.  How  can 
I  write  about  it,  with  my  eyes  full  of  tears  and  my  hand 
all  of  a  tremble  ?  I  don't  even  know  why  I  am  sitting 
down  at  my  desk  now,  unless  it  is  habit  that  ke^ps  me 
to  my  old  every-day  task,  in  spite  of  all  the  grief  and 
fear  which  seem  to  unfit  me  entirely  for  performing  it. 

The  people  of  the  house  were  asleep  and  lazy  on  that 
dreadful  night,  and  I  was  the  first  to  open  the  door. 
Never,  never  could  I  describe  in  writing,  or  even  say  in 
plain  talk,  though  it  is  so  much  easier,  what  I  felt  when 


THE    QUEEN*    OF    HEARTS.  431 

I  saw  t\vo  policemen  come  in,  carrying  between  them 
what  seemed  to  me  to  be  a  dead  girl,  and  that  girl  Mary  ! 
I  caught  hold  of  her,  and  gave  a  scream  that  must  have 
alarmed  the  whole  house,  for  frightened  people  came 
crowding  down  stairs  in  their  night-dresses.  There  was 
a  dreadful  confusion  and  noise  of  loud  talking,  but  I 
heard  nothing  and  saw  nothing  till  I  had  got  her  into 
my  room  and  laid  on  my  bed.  I  stooped  down,  frantic- 
like,  to  kiss  her,  and  saw  an  awful  mark  of  a  blow  on 
the  left  temple,  and  felt,  at  the  same  time,  a  feeble  flut- 
ter of  her  breath  on  my  cheek.  The  discovery  that  she 
was  not  dead  seemed  to  give  me  back  my  senses  again. 
I  told  one  of  the  policemen  where  the  nearest  doctor 
was  to  be  found,  and  sat  down  by  the  bedside  while  he 
was  gone,  and  bathed  her  poor  head  with  cold  water. 
She  never  opened  her  eyes,  or  moved,  or  spoke ;  but  she 
breathed,  and  that  was  enough  for  me,  because  it  was 
enough  for  life. 

The  policeman  left  in  the  room  was  a  big,  thick- 
voiced,  pompous  man,  with  a  horrible  unfeeling  pleasure 
in  hearing  himself  talk  before  an  assembly  of  frightened, 
silent  people.  He  told  us  how  he  had  found  her,  as  if 
he  had  been  telling  a  story  in  a  tap-room,  and  began 
with  saying,  "I  don't  think  the  young  woman  was 
drunk." 

Drunk !  My  Mary,  who  might  have  been  a  born  lady 
for  all  the  spirits  she  ever  touched — drunk !  I  could 
have  struck  the  man  for  uttering  the  word,  with  her 
lying — poor  suffering  angel — so  white,  and  still,  and  help- 
less before  him.  As  it  was,  I  gave  him  a  look,  but  he 
was  too  stupid  to  understand  it,  and  went  droning  on, 
saying  the  same  thing  over  and  over  again  in  the  same 
words.  And  yet  the  story  of  how  they  found  her  was, 
like  all  the  sad  stories  I  have  ever  heard  told  in  real  life, 
so  very,  very  short.  They  had  just  seen  her  lying  along 


432  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

on  the  curb-stone  a  few  streets  off,  and  had  taken  her  to 
the  station-house.  There  she  had  been  searched,  and  one 
of  my  cards,  that  I  give  to  ladies  who  promise  me  em- 
ployment, had  been  found  in  her  pocket,  and  so  they  had 
brought  her  to  our  house.  This  was  all  the  man  really 
had  to  tell.  There  was  nobody  near  her  when  she  was 
found,  and  no  evidence  to  show  how  the  blow  on  her 
temple  had  been  inflicted. 

What  a  time  it  was  before  the  doctor  came,  and  how 
dreadful  to  hear  him  say,  after  he  had  looked  at  her,  that 
he  was  afraid  alt  the  medical  men  in  the  world  could  be 
of  no  use  here !  He  could  not  get  her  to  swallow  any 
thing,  and  the  more  he  tried  to  bring  her  back  to  her 
senses,  the  less  chance  there  seemed  of  his  succeeding. 
He  examined  the  blow  on  her  temple,  and  said  he  thought 
she  must  have  fallen  down  in  a  fit  of  some  sort,  and 
struck  her  head  against  the  pavement,  and  so  have  given 
her  brain  what  he  was  afraid  was  a  fatal  shake.  I  asked 
what  was  to  be  done  if  she  showed  any  return  to  sense 
in  the  night.  He  said,  "  Send  for  me  directly ;"  and 
stopped  for  a  little  while  afterward  stroking  her  head 
gently  with  his  hand,  and  whispering  to  himself,  "  Poor 
girl,  so  young  and  so  pretty !"  I  had  felt,  some  minutes 
before,  as  if  I  could  have  struck  the  policeman,  and  I  felt 
now  as  if  I  could  have  thrown  my  arms  round  the  doc- 
tor's neck  and  kissed  him.  I  did  put  out  my  hand  when 
he  took  up  his  hat,  and  he  shook  it  in  the  friendliest  way. 
"  Don't  hope,  my  dear,"  he  said,  and  went  out. 

The  rest  of  the  lodgers  followed  him,  all  silent  and 
shocked,  except  the  inhuman  wretch  who  owns  the  house, 
and  lives  in  idleness  on  the  high  rents  he  wrings  from 
poor  people  like  us. 

"  She's  three  weeks  in  my  debt,"  says  he,  with  a  frown 
and  an  oath.  "  Where  the  devil  is  my  money  to  come 
from  now  ?"  Brute  !  brute  ,' 


THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS.  433 

I  had  a  long  cry  alone  with  her  that  seemed  to  ease 
my  heart  a  little.  She  was  not  the  least  changed  for  the 
better  when  I  had  wiped  away  the  tears  and  could  see 
her  clearly  again.  I  took  up  her  right  hand,  which  lay 
nearest  to  me.  It  was  tight  clenched.  I  tried  to  un- 
clasp the  fingers,  and  succeeded  after  a  little  time.  Some- 
thing dark  fell  out  of  the  palm  of  her  hand  as  I  straight- 
ened it. 

I  picked  the  thing  up,  and  smoothed  it  out,  and  saw 
that  it  was  an  end  of  a  man's  cravat. 

A  very  old,  rotten,  dingy  strip  of  black  silk,  with  thin 
lilac  lines,  all  blurred  and  deadened  with  dirt,  running 
across  and  across  the  stuff  in  a  sort  of  trellis-work  pat- 
tern. The  small  end  of  the  cravat  was  hemmed  in  the 
usual  way,  but  the  other  end  was  all  jagged,  as  if  the 
morsel  then  in  my  hands  had  been  torn  off  violently  from 
the  rest  of  the  stuff.  A  chill  ran  all  over  me  as  I  looked 
at  it ;  for  that  poor,  stained,  crumpled  end  of  a  cravat 
seemed  to  be  saying  to  me,  as  though  it  had  been  in 
plain  words,  "If  she  dies,  she  has  come  to  her  death  by 
foul  means,  and  I  am  the  witness  of  it." 

I  had  been  frightened  enough  before,  lest  she  should 
die  suddenly  and  quietly  without  my  knowing  it,  while 
we  were  alone  together ;  but  I  got  into  a  perfect  agony 
now,  for  fear  this  last  worst  affliction  should  take  me  by 
surprise.  I  don't  suppose  five  minutes  passed  all  that 
woeful  night  through  without  my  getting  up  and  putting 
my  cheek  close  to  her  mouth,  to  feel  if  the  faint  breaths 
still  fluttered  out  of  it.  They  came  and  went  just  the 
same  as  at  first,  though  the  fright  I  was  in  often  made 
me  fancy  they  were  stilled  forever. 

Just  as  the  church  clocks  were  striking  four,  I  was 
startled  by  seeing  the  room  door  open.  It  was  only 
Dusty  Sal  (as  they  call  her  in  the  house),  the  maid-of-all- 
work.  She  was  wrapped  up  in  the  blanket  off  her  bed  : 


434  THE    yl'EEX    OF    HEARTS. 

her  hair  was  all  tumbled  over  her  face,  and  her  eyes  were 
heavy  with  sleep  as  she  came  up  to  the  bedside  where  I 
was  sitting. 

"I've  two  hours  good  before  I  begin  to  work,"  says 
she,  in  her  hoarse,  drowsy  voice,  "  and  I've  come  to  sit 
up  and  take  my  turn  at  watching  her.  You  lay  down 
and  get  some  sleep  on  the  rug.  Here's  my  blanket  for 
you.  I  don't  mind  the  cold — it  will  keep  me  awake." 

"  You  are  very  kind — very,  very  kind  and  thoughtful, 
Sally,"  says  I,  "but  I  am  too  wretched  in  my  mind  to 
want  sleep,  or  rest,  or  to  do  any  thing  but  wait  where  I 
am,  and  try  and  hope  for  the  best." 

"Then  I'll  wait  too,"  says  Sally.  "I  must  do  gome- 
thing  ;  if  there's  nothing  to  do  but  waiting,  I'll  wait." 

And  she  sat  down  opposite  me  at  the  foot  of  the  bed, 
and  drew  the  blanket  close  round  her  with  a  shiver. 

"  After  working  so  hard  as  you  do,  I'm  sure  you  must 
want  all  the  little  rest  you  can  get,"  says  I. 

"  Excepting  only  you,"  says  Sally,  putting  her  heavy 
arm  very  clumsily,  but  very  gently  at  the  same  time, 
round  Mary's  feet,  and  looking  hard  at  the  pale,  still  face 
on  the  pillow.  "  Excepting  you,  she's  the  only  soul  in 
this  house  as  never  swore  at  me,  or  give  me  a  hard  word 
that  I  can  remember.  When  you  made  puddings  on 
Sundays,  and  give  her  half,  she  always  give  me  a  bit. 
The  rest  of  'em  calls  me  Dusty  Sal.  Excepting  only 
you,  again,  she  always  called  me  Sally,  as  if  she  knowetl 
me  in  a  friendly  way.  I  ain't  no  good  here,  but  I  ain't 
no  harm  neither ;  and  I  shall  take  my  turn  at  the  sitting 
up— that's  what  I  shall  do !" 

She  nestled  her  head  down  close  at  Mary's  feet  as  she 
spoke  those  words,  and  said  no  more.  I  once  or  twice 
thought  she  had  fallen  asleep,- but  whenever  I  looked  at 
her  her  heavy  eyes  were  always  wide  open.  .She  never 
changed  her  position  an  inch  till  the  church  clocks  struck 


THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS.  435 

six ;  then  she  gave  one  little  squeeze  to  Mary's  feet  with 
her  arm,  and  shuffled  out  of  the  room  without  a  word. 
A  minute  or  two  after,  I  heard  her  down  below,  lighting 
the  kitchen  fire  just  as  usual. 

A  little  later,  the  doctor  stepped  over  before  his  break- 
fast-time to  see  if  there  had  been  any  change  in  the  night. 
He  only  shook  his  head  when  he  looked  at  her  as  if  there 
was  no  hope.  Having  nobody  else  to  consult  that  I 
could  put  trust  in,  I  showed  him  the  end  of  the  cravat, 
and  told  him  of  the  dreadful  suspicion  that  had  arisen  in 
my  mind  when  I  found  it  in  her  hand. 

"  You  must  keep  it  carefully,  and  produce  it  at  the  in- 
quest," he  said.  "  I  don't  know,  though,  that  it  is  likely 
to  lead  to  any  thing.  The  bit  of  stuff  may  have  b.een 
lying  on  the  pavement  near  her,  and  her  hand  may  have 
unconsciously  clutched  it  when  she  fell.  Was  she  sub- 
ject to  fainting-fits?" 

"  Not  more  so,  sir,  than  other  young  girls  who  are 
hard-worked  and  anxious,  and  weakly  from  poor  living," 
I  answered. 

"  I  can't  say  that  she  may  not  have  got  that  blow  from 
a  fall,"  the  doctor  went  on,  looking  at  her  temple  again. 
"  I  can't  say  that  it  presents  any  positive  appearance  of 
having  been  inflicted  by  another  person.  It  will  be  im- 
portant, however,  to  ascertain  what  state  of  health  she 
was  in  last  night.  Have  you  any  idea  where  she  was 
yesterday  evening  ?" 

I  told  him  where  she  was  employed  at  work,  and  said  I 
imagined  she  must  have  been  kept  there  later  than 
usual. 

"  I  shall  pass  the  place  this  morning,"  said  the  doctor, 
"  in  going  my  rounds  among  my  patients,  and  I'll  just 
step  in  and  make  some  inquiries." 

I  thanked  him,  and  we  parted.     Just  as  he  was  closing 

the  door  he  looked  in  again. 

10* 


436  THE  QUEEN"  OF  HEARTS. 

"  Was  she  your  sister  ?"  he  asked. 

"  No,  sir,  only  my  dear  friend." 

He  said  nothing  more,  but  I  heard  him  sigh  as  he  shut 
the  door  softly.  Perhaps  he  once  had  a  sister  of  his  own, 
and  lost  her?  Perhaps  she  was  like  Mary  in  the  face? 

The  doctor  was  hours  gone  away.  I  began  to  feel  un- 
speakably forlorn  and  helpless,  so  much  so  as  even  to 
wish  selfishly  that  Robert  might  really  have  sailed  from 
America,  and  might  get  to  London  in  time  to  assist  and 
console  me. 

No  living  creature  came  into  the  room  but  Sally.  The 
first  time  she  brought  me  some  tea ;  the  second  and  third 
times  she  only  looked  in  to  see  if  there  was  any  change, 
and  glanced  her  eye  toward  the  bed.  I  had  never  known 
her  so  silent  before ;  it  seemed  almost  as  if  this  dreadful 
accident  had  struck  her  dumb.  I  ought  to  have  spoken 
to  her,  perhaps,  but  there  was  something  in  her  face  that 
daunted  me  ;  and,  besides,  the  fever  of  anxiety  I  was  in 
began  to  dry  up  my  lips,  as  if  they  would  never  be  able 
to  shape  any  words  again.  I  was  still  tormented  by 
that  frightful  apprehension  of  the  past  night,  that  she 
would  die  without  my  knowing  it— die  without  saying 
one  word  to  clear  up  the  awful  mystery  of  this  blow, 
and  set  the  suspicions  at  rest  forever  which  I  still  felt 
whenever  my  eyes  fell  on  the  end  of  the  old  cravat. 

At  last  the  doctor  came  back. 

"  I  think  you  may  safely  clear  your  mind  of  any  doubts 
to  which  that  bit  of  stuff  may  have  given  rise,"  he  said. 
"She  was,  as  you  supposed,  detained  late  by  her  em- 
ployers, and  she  fainted  in  the  work-room.  They  most 
unwisely  and  unkindly  let  her  go  home  alone,  without 
giving  her  any  stimulant,  as  soon  as  she  came  to  her 
senses  again.  Nothing  is  more  probable,  under  these 
circumstances,  than  that  she  should  faint  a  second  time 
on  her  way  here.  A  fall  on  the  pavement,  without  any 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  487 

friendly  arm  to  break  it,  might  have  produced  even  a 
worse  injury  than  the  injury  we  see.  I  believe  that  the 
only  ill  usage  to  which  the  poor  girl  was  exposed  was 
the  neglect  she  met  with  in  the  work-room." 

"  You  speak  very  reasonably,  I  own,  sir,"  said  I,  not 
yet  quite  convinced.  "  Still,  perhaps  she  may — 

"  My  poor  girl,  I  told  you  not  to  hope,"  said  the  doc- 
tor, interrupting  me.  He  went  to  Mary,  and  lifted  up 
her  eyelids,  and  looked  at  her  eyes  while  he  spoke ;  then 
added,  "  If  you  still  doubt  how  she  came  by  that  blow, 
do  not  encourage  the  idea  that  any  words  of  hers  will 
ever  enlighten  you.  She  will  never  speak  again." 

"  Not  dead  !     Oh,  sir,  don't  say  she's  dead !" 

"  She  is  dead  to  pain  and  sorrow — dead  to  speech  and 
recognition.  There  is  more  animation  in  the  life  of  the 
feeblest  insect  that  flies  than  in  the  life  that  is  left  in 
her.  When  you  look  at  her  now,  try  to  think  that  she 
is  in  heaven.  That  is  the  best  comfort  I  can  give  you, 
after  telling  the  hard  truth." 

I  did  not  believe  him.  I  could  not  believe  him.  So 
long  as  she  breathed  at  all,  so  long  I  Avas  resolved  to 
hope.  Soon  after  the  doctor  wras  gone,  Sally  came  in 
again,  and  found  me  listening  (if  I  may  call  it  so)  at 
Mary's  lips.  She  went  to  where  my  little  hand-glass 
hangs  against  the  wall,  took  it  down,  and  gave  it  to  me. 

"  See  if  the  breath  marks  it,"  she  said. 

Yes ;  her  breath  did  mark  it,  but  very  faintly.  Sally 
cleaned  the  glass  with  her  apron,  and  gave  it  back  to  me. 
As  she  did  so,  she  half  stretched  out  her  hand  to  Mary's 
face,  but  drew  it  in  again  suddenly,  as  if  she  was  afraid 
of  soiling  Mary's  delicate  skin  with  her  hard,  horny  fin- 
gers. Going  out,  she  stopped  at  the  foot  of  the  bed,  and 
scraped  away  a  little  patch  of  mud  that  was  on  one  of 
Mary's  shoes. 

"  I  always  used  to  clean  'em  for  her,"  said  Sally,  "  to 


438  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

save  her  hands  from  getting  blacked.  May  I  take  'em 
off  now,  and  clean  'em  again  ?" 

I  nodded  my  head,  for  my  heart  was  too  heavy  to 
speak.  Sally  took  the  shoes  off  with  a  slow,  awkward 
tenderness,  and  went  out. 

An  hour  or  more  must  have  passed,  when,  ptitting  the 
glass  over  her  lips  again,  I  saw  no  mark  on  it.  I  held  it 
closer  and  closer.  I  dulled  it  accidentally  with  my  own 
breath,  and  cleaned  it.  I  held  it  over  her  again.  Oh 
Mary,  Mary,  the  doctor  was  right!  I  ought  to  havr 
only  thought  of  you  in  heaven ! 

Dead,  without  a  word,  without  a  sign — without  even 
a  look  to  tell  the  true  story  of  the  blow  that  killed  her! 
I  could  not  call  to  any  body,  I  could  not  cry,  I  could  not 
so  much  as  put  the  glass  down  and  give  her  a  kiss  for 
the  last  time.  I  don't  know  how  long  I  had  sat  there 
with  my  eyes  burning,  and  my  hands  deadly  cold,  when 
Sally  came  in  with  the  shoes  cleaned,  and  carried  care- 
fully in  her  apron  for  fear  of  a  soil  touching  them.  At 
the  sight  of  that — 

I  can  write  no  more.  My  tears  drop  so  fast  on  the 
paper  that  I  can  see  nothing. 

March  12th.  She  died  on  the  afternoon  of  the  eighth. 
On  the  morning  of  the  ninth,  I  wrote,  as  in  duty  bound, 
to  her  step-mother  at  Hammersmith.  There  was  no  an- 
swer. I  wrote  again  ;  my  letter  was  returned  to  me  this 
morning  unopened.  For  all  that  woman  cares,  Mary 
might  be  buried  with  a  pauper's  funeral ;  but  this  shall 
never  be,  if  I  pawn  every  thing  about  me,  down  to  the 
very  gown  that  is  on  my  back. 

The  bare  thought  of  Mary  being  buried  by  the  work- 
house gave  me  the  spirit  to  dry  my  eyes,  and  go  to  the 
undertaker's,  and  tell  him  how  I  was  placed.  I  said,  if 
he  would  <?et  me  an  estimate  of  all  that  would  have  to 


THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS.  439 

be  paid,  from  first  to  last,  for  the  cheapest  decent  funeral 
that  could  be  had,  I  would  undertake  to  raise  the  money. 
lie  gave  me  the  estimate,  written  in  this  way,  like  a  com- 
mon bill : 


£1  13 

0 

Vestrv  

0     4 

4 

0     4 

4 

Clerk          , 

,  0     1 

0 

Sexton        

0     1 

o 

Beadle    

,  0     1 

0 

Bell  

0     1 

0 

Six  feet  of  ground  

0     2 

o 

Total... 

£2     8 

4 

-If  I  had  the  heart  to  give  any  thought  to  it,  I  should 
be  inclined  to  wish  that  the  Church  could  afford  to  do 
without  so  many  small  charges  for  burying  poor  people, 
to  whose  friends  even  shillings  are  of  consequence.  But 
it  is  useless  to  complain ;  the  money  must  be  raised  at 
once.  The  charitable  doctor — a  poor  man  himself,  or  he 
would  not  be  living  in  our  neighborhood — has  subscribed 
ten  shillings  toward  the  expenses  ;  and  the  coroner,  when 
the  inquest  was  over,  added  five  more.  Perhaps  others 
may  assist  me.  If  not,  I  have  fortunately  clothes  and 
furniture  of  my  own  to  pawn.  And  I  must  set  about 
parting  with  them  without  delay,  for  the  funeral  is  to  be 
to-morrow,  the  thirteenth. 

The  funeral — Mary's  funeral !  It  is  wTell  that  the 
straits  and  difficulties  I  am  in  keep  my  mind  on  the 
stretch.  If  I  had  leisure  to  grieve,  where  should  I  find 
the  courage  to  face  to-morrow  ? 

Thank  God  they  did  not  want  me  at  the  inquest.  The 
verdict  given,  with  the  doctor,  the  policeman,  and  two 
persons  from  the  place  where  she  worked,  for  witnesses, 
was  Accidental  Death.  The  end  of  the  cravat  was  pro- 
duced, and  the  coroner  said  that  it  was  certainly  enough 
to  suggest  suspicion  ;  but  the  jury,  in  the  j'.bsence  of  any 


440  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEAKTS. 

positive  evidence,  held  to  the  doctor's  notion  that  she 
had  fainted  and  fallen  down,  and  so  got  the  blow  on  her 
temple.  They  reproved  the  people  where  Mary  worked 
for  letting  her  go  home  alone,  without  so  much  as  a  drop 
of  brandy  to  support  her,  after  she  had  fallen  into  a  swoon 
from  exhaustion  before  their  eyes.  The  coroner  added, 
on  his  own  account,  that  he  thought  the  reproof  was 
thoroughly  deserved.  After  that,  the  cravat-end  was 
given  back  to  me  by  my  own  desire,  the  police  saying 
that  they  could  make  no  investigations  with  such  a  slight 
clew  to  guide  them.  They  may  think  so,  and  the  coro- 
ner, and  doctor,  and  jury  may  think  so ;  but,  in  spite  of 
all  that  has  passed,  I  am  now  more  firmly  persuaded 
than  ever  that  there  is  some  dreadful  mystery  in  connec- 
tion with  that  blow  on  my  poor  lost  Mary's  temple  which 
has  yet  to  be  revealed,  and  which  may  come  to  be  dis- 
covered through  this  very  fragment  of  a  cravat  that  I 
found  in  her  hand.  I  can  not  give  any  good  reason  for 
why  I  think  so,  but  I  know  that  if  I  had  been  one  of 
the  jury  at  the  inquest,  nothing  should  have  induced  me 
to  consent  to  such  a  verdict  as  Accidental  Death. 

After  I  had  pawned  my  things,  and  had  begged  a 
small  advance  of  Avages  at  the  place  where  I  work  to 
make  up  what  was  still  wanting  to  pay  for  Mary's  funer- 
al, I  thought  I  might  have  had  a  little  quiet  time  to  pre- 
pare myself  as  I  best  could  for  to-morrow.  But  this 
was  not  to  be.  When  I  got  home  the  landlord  met  me 
in  the  passage.  He  was  in  liquor,  and  more  brutal  and 
pitiless  in  his  way  of  looking  and  speaking  than  ever  I 
saw  him  before. 

"  So  you're  going  to  be  fool  enough  to  pay  for  her  fu- 
neral, are  you  ?"  were  his  first  words  to  me. 

I  was  too  weary  and  heart-sick  to  answer ;  I  only  tried 
to  get  by  him  to  my  own  door. 

"  If  you  can  pay  for  burying  her,"  he  went  on,  putting 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  441 

himself  in  front  of  me,  "  you  can  pay  her  lawful  debts. 
She  owes  me  three  weeks'  rent.  Suppose  you  raise  the 
money  for  that  next,  and  hand  it  over  to  me  ?  I'm  not 
joking,  I  can  promise  you.  I  mean  to  have  my  rent ; 
and,  if  somebody  don't  pay  it,  I'll  have  her  body  seized 
and  sent  to  the  workhouse !" 

Between  terror  and  disgust,  I  thought  I  should  have 
dropped  to  the  floor  at  his  feet.  But  I  determined  not 
to  let  him  see  how  he  had  horrified  me,  if  I  could  possi- 
bly control  myself.  So  I  mustered  resolution  enough  to 
answer-that  I  did  not  believe  the  law  gave  him  any  such 
wicked  power  over  the  dead. 

"  I'll  teach  you  what  the  law  is !"  he  broke  in ;  "you'll 
raise  money  to  bury  her  like  a  born  lady,  when  she's  died 
in  my  debt,  will  you  ?  And  you  think  I'll  let  my  rights 
be  trampled  upon  like  that,  do  you  ?  See  if  I  do !  I'll 
give  you  till  to-night  to  think  about  it.  If  I  don't  have 
the  three  weeks  she  owes  before  to-morrow,  dead  or  alive, 
she  shall  go  to  the  workhouse !" 

This  time  I  managed  to  push  by  him,  and  get  to  my 
own  room,  and  lock  the  door  in  his  face.  As  soon  as  I 
was  alone  I  fell  into  a  breathless,  suffocating  fit  of  crying 
that  seemed  to  be  shaking  me  to  pieces.  But  there  was 
no  good  and  no  help  in  tears ;  I  did  my  best  to  calm  my- 
self after  a  little  while,  and  tried  to  think  who  I  should 
run  to  for  help  and  protection. 

The  doctor  was  the  first  friend  I  thought  of;  but  I 
knew  he  was  always  out  seeing  his  patients  of  an  after- 
noon. The  beadle  was  the  next  person  who  came  into 
my  head.  He  had  the  look  of  being  a  very  dignified, 
unapproachable  kind  of  man  when  he  came  about  the 
inquest ;  but  he  talked  to  me  a  little  then,  and  said  I 
was  a  good  girl,  and  seemed,  I  really  thought,  to  pity  me. 
So  to  him  I  determined  to  apply  in  my  great  danger  and 
distress. 


442  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

Most  fortunately,  I  found  him  at  home.  When  I  told 
him  of  the  landlord's  infamous  threats,  and  of  the  misery 
I  was  suffering  in  consequence  of  them,  lie  rose  up  with 
a  stamp  of  his  foot,  and  sent  for  his  gold-laced  cocked 
hat  that  he  wears  on  Sundays,  and  his  long  cane  with  the 
ivory  top  to  it. 

"  I'll  give  it  to  him,"  said  the  beadle.  "  Come  along 
with  me,  my  dear.  I  think  I  told  you  you  were  a  good 
girl  at  the  inquest — if  I  didn't,  I  tell  you  so  now.  I'll 
give  it  to  him !  Come  along  with  me." 

And  he  went  out,  striding  on  with  his  cocked  hat  and 
his  great  cane,  and  I  followed  him. 

"Landlord!"  he  cries,  the  moment  lie  gets  into  the 
passage,  with  a  thump  of  his  cane  on  the  floor, "  land- 
lord !"  with  a  look  all  round  him  as  if  he  was  King  of 
England  calling  to  a  beast,  "  come  out !" 

The  moment  the  landlord  came  out  and  saw  who  it 
was,  his  eye  fixed  on  the  cocked  hat,  and  he  turned  as 
pale  as  ashes. 

"  How  dare  you  frighten  this  poor  girl  ?"  says  the 
beadle.  "How  dare  you  bully  her  at  this  sorrowful 
time  with  threatening  to  do  what  you  know  you  can't 
do  ?  How  dare  you  be  a  cowardly,  bullying,  braggado- 
cio of  an  unmanly  landlord  ?  Don't  talk  to  me  :  I  won't 
hear  you.  I'll  pull  you  up,  sir.  If  you  say  another 
word  to  the  young  woman,  I'll  pull  you  up  before  the 
authorities  of  this  metropolitan  parish.  I've  had  my  eye 
on  you,  and  the  authorities  have  had  their  eye  on  you, 
and  the  rector  has  had  his  eye  on  you.  We  don't  like 
the  look  of  your  small  shop  round  the  corner ;  we  don't 
like  the  look  of  some  of  the  customers  who  deal  at  it ; 
we  don't  like  disorderly  characters ;.  and  we  don't  by  any 
manner  of  means  like  you.  Go  away.  Leave  the  young 
woman  alone.  Hold  your  tongue,  or  I'll  pull  you  up. 
If  he  says  another  word,  or  interferes  with  you  again, 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  443 

mv  dear,  come  and  tell  me ;  and,  as  sure  as  he's  a  bully- 
ing, unmanly,  braggadocio  of  a  landlord,  I'll  pull  him  up." 
With  those  words  the  beadle  gave  a  loud  cough  to 
clear  his  throat,  and  another  thump  of  his  cane  on  the 
floor,  and  so  went  striding  out  again  before  I  could  open 
my  lips  to  thank  him.  The  landlord  slunk  back  into  his 
room  without  a  word.  I  was  left  alone  and  unmolested 
at  last,  to  strengthen  myself  for  the  hard  trial  of  my  poor 
love's  funeral  to-morrow. 

March  13th.'  It  is  all  over.  A  week  ago  her  head  rest- 
ed on  my  bosom.  It  is  laid  in  the  church-yard  now  ;  the 
fresh  earth  lies  heavy  over  her  grave.  I  and  my  dearest 
friend,  the  sister  of  my  love,  are  parted  in  this  world  for- 
ever. 

I  followed  her  funeral  alone  through  the  cruel,  bustling 
streets.  Sally,  I  thought,  might  have  offered  to  go  with 
me,  but  she  never  so  much  as  came  into  my  room.  I  did 
not  like  to  think  badly  of  her  for  this,  and  I  am  glad  I 
restrained  myself;  for,  when  we  got  into  the  church-yard, 
among  the  two  or  three  people  who  were  standing  by 
the  open  grave  I  saw  Sally,  in  her  ragged  gray  shawl 
and  her  patched  black  bonnet.  She  did  not  seem  to  no- 
tice me  till  the  last  words  of  the  service  had  been  read 
and  the  clergyman  had  gone  away;  then  she  came  up 
and  spoke  to  me. 

"  I  couldn't  follow  along  with  you,"  she  said,  looking 
at  her  ragged  shawl,  "for  I  haven't  a  decent  suit  of 
clothes  to  walk  in.  I  wish  I  could  get  vent  in  crying 
for  her  like  you,  but  I  can't;  all  the  cry  ing's  been 
drudged  and  starved  out  of  me  long  ago.  Don't  you 
think  about  lighting  your  fire  when  you  get  home.  I'll 
do  that,  and  get  you  a  drop  of  tea  to  comfort  you." 

She  seemed  on  the  point  of  saying  a  kind  word  or  two 
more,  when,  seeing  the  beadle  coming  toward  me,  she 


444  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

drew  back,  as  if  she  was  afraid  of  him,  and  left  the 
church-yard. 

"  Here's  my  subscription  toward  the  funeral,"  said  the 
beadle,  giving  me  back  his  shilling  fee.  "Don't  say  any 
thing  about  it,  for  it  mightn't  be  approved  of  in  a  busi- 
ness point  of  view,  if  it  came  to  some  people's  ears.  Has 
the  landlord  said  any  thing  more  to  you  ?  no,  I  thought 
not.  He's  too  polite  a  man  to  give  me  the  trouble  of 
pulling  him  up.  Don't  stop  crying  here,  my  dear. 
Take  the  advice  of  a  man  familiar  with  funerals,  and  go 
home." 

I  tried  to  take  his  advice,  but  it  seemed  like  deserting 
Mary  to  go  away  when  all  the  rest  forsook  her. 

I  waited  about  till  the  earth  was  thrown  in  and  the 
man  had  left  the  place,  then  I  returned  to  the  grave. 
Oh,  how  bare  and  cruel  it  was,  without  so  much  as  a  bit 
of  green  turf  to  soften  it !  Oh,  how  much  harder  it 
seemed  to  live  than  to  die,  when  I  stood  alone  looking 
at  the  heavy  piled-up  lumps  of  clay,  and  thinking  of  what 
was  hidden  beneath  them ! 

I  was  driven  home  by  my  own  despairing  thoughts. 
The  sight  of  Sally  lighting  the  fire  in  my  room  eased  my 
heart  a  little.  When  she  was  gone,  I  took  up  Robert's 
letter  again  to  keep  my  mind  employed  on  the  only  sub- 
ject in  the  world  that  has  any  interest  for  it  now. 

This  fresh  reading  increased  the  doubts  I  had  already 
felt  relative  to  his  having  remained  in  America  after 
writing  to  me.  My  grief  and  forlornness  have  made  a 
strange  alteration  in  my  former  feelings  about  his  coming 
back.  I  seem  to  have  lost  all  my  prudence  and  self-de- 
nial, and  to  care  so  little  about  his  poverty,  and  so  much 
about  himself,  that  the  prospect  of  his  return  is  really 
the  only  comforting  thought  I  have  now  to  support  me. 
I  know  this  is  weak  in  me,  and  that  his  coming  back 
can  lead  to  no  good  result  for  either  of  us ;  but  he  is  the 


THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS.  445 

only  living  being  left  me  to  love ;  and — I  can't  explain 
it — but  I  want  to  put  my  arms  round  his  neck  and  tell 
him  about  Mary. 

March  14th.  I  locked  up  the  end  of  the  cravat  in  my 
writing-desk.  No  change  in  the  dreadful  suspicions  that 
the  bare  sight  of  it  rouses  in  me.  I  tremble  if  I  so  much 
as  touch  it. 

March  loth,  16th,  1 7th.  Work,  work,  work.  If  I  don't 
knock  up,  I  shall  be  able  to  pay  back  the  advance  in  an- 
other week ;  and  then,  with  a  little  more  pinching  in  my 
daily  expenses,  I  may  succeed  in  saving  a  shilling  or  two 
to  get  some  turf  to  put  over  Mary's  grave,  and  perhaps 
even  a  few  flowers  besides  to  grow  round  it. 

March  18th.  Thinking  of  Robert  all  day  long.  Does 
this  mean  that  he  is  really  coming  back  ?  If  it  does, 
reckoning  the  distance  he  is  at  from  New  York,  and  the 
time  ships  take  to  get  to  England,  I  might  see  him  by 
the  end  of  April  or  the  beginning  of  May. 

March  1 9th.  I  don't  remember  my  mind  running  once 
on  the  end  of  the  cravat  yesterday,  and  I  am  cei-tain  I 
never  looked  at  it ;  yet  I  had  the  strangest  dream  con- 
cerning it  at  night.  I  thought  it  was  lengthened  into  a 
long  clew,  like  the  silken  thread  that  led  to  Rosamond's 
Bower.  I  thought  I  took  hold  of  it,  and  followed  it  a 
little  way,  and  then  got  frightened  and  tried  to  go  back, 
but  found  that  I  was  obliged,  in  spite  of  myself,  to  go 
on.  It  led  me  through  a  place  like  the  Valley  of  the 
Shadow  of  Death,  in  an  old  print  I  remember  in  my 
mother's  copy  of  the  Pilgrim's  Progress.  I  seemed  to 
be  months  and  months  following  it  without  any  respite 
till  at  last  it  brought  me,  on  a  sudden,  face  to  face  with 


446  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

an  angel  whose  eyes  were  like  Mary's.  He  said  to  me, 
"  Go  on,  still ;  the  truth  is  at  the  end,  waiting  for  you 
to  find  it."  I  burst  out  crying,  for  the  angel  had  Mary's 
voice  as  well  as  Mary's  eyes,  and  woke  with  my  heart 
throbbing  and  my  cheeks  all  wet.  What  is  the  meaning 
of  this?  Is  it  always  superstitious,  I  wonder,  to  believe 

that  dreams  may  come  true  ? 

****** 

April  30th.  I  have  found  it !  God  knows  to  what  re- 
sults it  may  lead  ;  but  it  is  as  certain  as  that  I  am  sitting 
here  before  my  journal  that  I  have  found  the  cravat  from 
which  the  end  in  Mary's  hand  was  torn.  I  discovered 
it  last  night ;  but  the  flutter  I  was  in,  and  the  nervous- 
ness and  uncertainty  I  felt,  prevented  me  from  noting 
down  this  most  extraordinary  and  unexpected  event  at 
the  time  when  it  happened.  Let  me  try  if  I  can  lire- 
serve  the  memory  of  it  in  writing  now. 

I  was  going  home  rather  late  from  where  I  work, 
when  I  suddenly  remembered  that  I  had  forgotten  to 
buy  myself  any  candles  the  evening  before,  and  that  I 
should  be  left  in  the  dark  if  I  did  not  manage  to  rectify 
this  mistake  in  some  way.  The  shop  close  to  me,  at 
which  I  usually  deal,  would  be  shut  up,  I  knew,  before 
I  could  get  to  it ;  so  I  determined  to  go  into  the  first 
place  I  passed  where  candles  were  sold.  This  turned 
out  to  be  a  small  shop  with  two  counters,  which  did 
business  on  one  side  in  the  general  grocery  way,  and  on 
the  other  in  the  rag  and  bottle  and  old  iron  line. 

There  were  several  customers  on  the  grocery  side 
when  I  went  in,  so  I  waited  on  the  empty  rag  side  till 
I  could  be  served.  Glancing  about  me  here  at  the  worth- 
less-looking things  by  which  I  was  surrounded,  my  eye 
was  caught  by  a  bundle  of  rags  lying  on  the  counter,  as 
if  they  had  just  been  brought  in  and  left  there.  From 
mere  idle  curiosity,  I  looked  close  at  the  rags,  and  saw 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  447 

among  them  something  like  an  old  cravat.  I  took  it  up 
directly  and  held  it  under  a  gaslight.  The  pattern  was 
blurred  lilac  lines,  running  across  and  across  the  dingy 
black  ground  in  a  trellis-work  form.  I  looked  at  the 
ends :  one  of  them  was  torn  off. 

How  I  managed  to  hide  the  breathless  surprise  into 
which  this  discovery  threw  me  I  can  not  say,  but  I  cer- 
tainly contrived  to  steady  my  voice  somehow,  and  to  ask 
for  my  candles  calmly  when  the  man  and  woman  serving 
in  the  shop,  having  disposed  of  their  other  customers, 
inquired  of  me  what  I  wanted. 

As  the  man  took  down  the  candles,  my  brain  was  all 
in  a  whirl  with  trying  to  think  how  I  could  get  posses- 
sion of  the  old  cravat  without  exciting  any  suspicion. 
Chance,  and  a  little  quickness  on  my  part  in  taking  ad- 
vantage of  it,  put  the  object  within  my  reach  in  a  mo- 
ment. The  man,  having  counted  out  the  candles,  asked 
the  woman  for  some  paper  to  wrap  them  in.  She  pro- 
duced a  piece  much  too  small  and  flimsy  for  the  purpose, 
and  declared,  when  he  called  for  something  better,  that 
the  day's  supply  of  stout  paper  was  all  exhausted.  He 
flew  into  a  rage  with  her  for  managing  so  badly.  Just 
as  they  were  beginning  to  quarrel  violently,  I  stepped 
back  to  the  rag-counter,  took  the  old  cravat  carelessly 
out  of  the  bundle,  and  said,  in  as  light  a  tone  as  I  could 
possibly  assume, 

"  Come,  come,  don't  let  my  candles  be  the  cause  of 
hard  words  between  you.  Tie  this  ragged  old  thing 
round  them  with  a  bit  of  string,  and  I  shall  carry  them 
home  quite  comfortably." 

The  man  seemed  disposed  to  insist  on  the  stout  paper 
being  produced ;  but  the  woman,  as  if  she  was  glad  of 
an  opportunity  of  spiting  him,  snatched  the  candles  away, 
and  tied  them  up  in  a  moment  in  the  torn  old  cravat.  I 
was  afraid  he  would  have  struck  her  before  my  face,  he 


448  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

seemed  in  such  a  fury ;  but,  fortunately,  another  custom- 
er came  in,  and  obliged  him  to  put  his  hands  to  peace- 
able and  proper  uses. 

"  Quite  a  bundle  of  all-sorts  on  the  opposite  counter 
there,"  I  said  to  the  woman,  as  I  paid  her  for  the  candles. 

"  Yes,  and  all  hoarded  up  for  sale  by  a  poor  creature 
with  a  lazy  brute  of  a  husband,  who  lets  his  wife  do  all 
the  work  while  he  spends  all  the  money,"  answered  the 
woman,  with  a  malicious  look  at  the  man  by  her  side. 

"  He  can't  surely  have  much  money  to  spend,  if  his  wife 
has  no  better  work  to  do  than  picking  up  rags,"  said  I. 

"  It  isn't  her  fault  if  she  hasn't  got  no  better,"  says  the 
woman,  rather  angrily.  "  She's  ready  to  turn  her  hand 
to  any  thing.  Charing,  washing,  laying-out,  keeping 
empty  houses — nothing  comes  amiss  to  her.  She's  my 
half-sister,  and  I  think  I  ought  to  know." 

"Did  you  say  she  went  out  charing?"  I  asked,  making 
believe  as  if  I  knew  of  somebody  who  might  employ  her. 

"  Yes,  of  course  I  did,"  answered  the  woman  ;  "  and 
if  you  can  put  a  job  into  her  hands,  you'll  be  doing  a 
good  turn  to  a  poor  hard-working  creature  as  wants  it. 
She  lives  down  the  Mews  here  to  the  right — name  of 
Horlick,  and  as  honest  a  woman  as  ever  stood  in  shoe- 
leather.  Now,  then,  ma'am,  what  for  you?" 

Another  customer  came  in  just  then,  and  occupied 
her  attention.  I  left  the  shop,  passed  the  turning  that 
led  down  to  the  Mews,  looked  up  at  the  name  of  the 
street,  so  as  to  know  how  to  find  it  again,  and  then  ran 
home  as  fast  as  I  could.  Perhaps  it  was  the  remem- 
brance of  my  strange  dream  striking  me  on  a  sudden,  or 
perhaps  it  was  the  shock  of  the  discovery  I  had  just  made, 
but  I  began  to  feel  frightened  without  knowing  why,  and 
anxious  to  be  under  shelter  in  my  own  room. 

If  Robert  should  come  back !  Oh,  what  a  relief  and 
help  it  would  be  now  if  Robert  should  come  back! 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  449 

May  1st.  On  getting  in-doors  last  night,  the  first  thing 
I  did,  after  striking  a  light,  was  to  take  the  ragged  cra- 
vat off  the  candles,  and  smooth  it  out  on  the  table.  I 
then  took  the  end  that  had  been  in  poor  Mary's  hand 
out  of  my  writing-desk,  and  smoothed  that  out  too.  It 
matched  the  torn  side  of  the  cravat  exactly.  I  put  them 
together,  and  satisfied  myself  that  there  was  not  a  doubt 
of  it. 

Not  once  did  I  close  my  eyes  that  night.  A  kind  of 
fever  got  possession  of  me — a  vehement  yearning  to  go 
on  from  this  first  discovery  and  find  out  more,  no  matter 
what  the  risk  might  be.  The  cravat  now  really  became, 
to  my  mind,  the  clew  that  I  thought  I  saw  in  my  dream 
— the  clew  that  I  was  resolved  to  follow.  I  determined 
to  go  to  Mrs.  Horlick  this  evening  on  my  return  from 
work. 

I  found  the  Mews  easily.  A  crook-backed  dwarf  of  a 
man  was  lounging  at  the  corner  of  it  smoking  his  pipe. 
Not  liking  his  looks,  I  did  not  inquire  of  him  where  Mrs. 
Horlick  lived,  but  went  down  the  Mews  till  I  met  with  a 
woman,  and  asked  her.  She  directed  me  to  the  right 
number.  I  knocked  at  the  door,  and  Mrs.  Horlick  her- 
self— a  lean,  ill-tempered,  miserable-looking  woman — an- 
swered it.  I  told  her  at  once  that  I  had  come  to  ask 
what  her  terms  were  for  charing.  She  stared  at  me  for 
a  moment,  then  answered  my  question  civilly  enough. 

"  You  look  surprised  at  a  stranger  like  me  finding  you 
out,"  I  said.  "  I  first  came  to  hear  of  you  last  night,  from 
a  relation  of  yours,  in  rather  an  odd  way." 

And  I  told  her  all  that  had  happened  in  the  chandler's 
shop,  bringing  in  the  bundle  of  rags,  and  the  circum- 
stance of  my  carrying  home  the  candles  in  the  old  torn 
cravat,  as  often  as  possible. 

"  It's  the  first  time  I've  heard  of  any  thing  belonging 
to  him  turning  out  any  use,"  said  Mrs.  Horlick,  bitterly. 


450  THE    Q.UEEN    OF    HEAKTS. 

"  What !  the  spoiled  old  neck-handkerchief  belonged 
to  your  husband,  did  it  ?"  said  I,  at  a  venture. 

"  Yes  ;  I  pitched  his  rotten  rag  of  a  neck'andkercher 
into  the  bundle  along  with  the  rest,  and  I  wish  I  could 
have  pitched  him  in  after  it,"  said  Mrs.  Horlick.  "  I'd 
sell  him  cheap  at  any  rag-shop.  There  he  stands,  smok- 
ing his  pipe  at  the  end  of  the  Mews,  out  of  work  for 
weeks  past,  the  idlest  humpbacked  pig  in  all  London." 

She  pointed  to  the  man  whom  I  had  passed  on  enter- 
ing the  Mews.  My  cheeks  began  to  burn  and  my  knees 
to  tremble,  for  I  knew  that  in  tracing  the  cravat  to  its 
owner  I  was  advancing  a  step  toward  a  fresh  discovery. 
I  wished  Mrs.  Horlick  good-evening,  and  said  I  would 
write  and  mention  the  day  on  which  I  wanted  her. 

What  I  had  just  been  told  put  a  thought  into  my 
mind  that  I  was  afraid  to  follow  out.  I  have  heard  peo- 
ple talk  of  being  light-headed,  and  I  felt  as  I  have  heard 
them  say  they  felt  when  I  retraced  my  steps  up  the  Mews. 
My  head  got  giddy,  and  my  eyes  seemed  able  to  see 
nothing  but  the  figure  of  the  little  crook-backed  man, 
still  smoking  his  pipe  in  his  former  place.  I  could  see 
nothing  but  that ;  I  could  think  of  nothing  but  the  mark 
of  the  blow  on  my  poor  lost  Mary's  temple.  I  know 
that  I  must  have  been  light-headed,  for  as  I  came  close 
to  the  crook-backed  man  I  stopped  without  meaning  it. 
The  minute  before,  there  had  been  no  idea  in  me  of 
speaking  to  him.  I  did  not  know  how  to  speak,  or  in 
what  way  it  would  be  safest  to  begin  ;  and  yet,  the  mo- 
ment I  came  face  to  face  with  him,  something  out  of 
myself  seemed  to  stop  me,  and  to  make  me  speak  with- 
out considering  beforehand,  without  thinking  of  conse- 
quences, without  knowing,  I  may  almost  say,  what  words 
I  was  uttering  till  the  instant  when  they  rose  to  my  lips. 

"  When  your  old  neck-tie  was  torn,  did  you  know  that 
one  end  of  it  went  to  the  rag-shop,  and  the  other  fell  into 
inv  hands?" 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  451 

I  said  these  bold  words  to  him  suddenly,  and,  as  it 
seemed,  without  my  own  will  taking  any  part  in  them. 

He  started,  stared,  changed  color.  He  was  too  much 
amazed  by  my  sudden  speaking  to  find  an  answer  for 
me.  When  he  did  open  his  lips,  it  was  to  say  rather  to 
himself  than  me, 

"  You're  not  the  girl." 

"  No,"  I  said,  with  a  strange  choking  at  my  heart,  "  I'm 
her  friend." 

By  this  time  lie  had  recovered  his  surprise,  and  he 
seemed  to  be  aware  that  he  had  let  out  more  than  he 
ought. 

"  You  may  be  any  body's  friend  you  like,"  he  said, 
brutally,  "  so  long  as  you  don't  come  jabbering  nonsense 
here.  I  don't  know  you,  and  I  don't  understand  your 
jokes." 

He  turned  quickly  away  from  me  when  he  had  said 
the  last  words.  He  had  never  once  looked  fairly  at  me 
since  I  first  spoke  to  him. 

Was  it  his  hand  that  had  struck  the  blow  ? 

I  had  only  sixpence  in  my  pocket,  but  I  took  it  out 
and  followed  him.  If  it  had  been  a  five-pound  note  I 
should  have  done  the  same  in  the  state  I  was  in  then. 

"  Would  a  pot  of  beer  help  you  to  understand  me  ?"  I 
said,  and  offered  him  the  sixpence. 

"  A  pot  ain't  no  great  tilings,"  he  answered,  taking  the 
sixpence  doubtfully. 

"  It  may  lead  to  something  better,"  I  said. 

His  eyes  began  to  twinkle,  and  he  came  close  to  me. 
Oh,  how  my  legs  trembled — how  my  head  swam ! 

"  This  is  all  in  a  friendly  way,  is  it  ?"  he  asked,  in  a 
whisper. 

I  nodded  my  head.  At  that  moment  I  could  not  have 
spoken  for  worlds. 

"  Friendly,  of  course,"  he  went  on  to  himself,  "  or  there 


452  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

would  have  been  a  policeman  in  it.  She  told  you,  I  sup- 
pose, that  I  wasn't  the  man  ?" 

I  nodded  my  head  again.  It  was  all  I  could  do  to 
keep  myself  standing  upright. 

"  I  suppose  it's  a  case  of  threatening  to  have  him  up, 
and  make  him  settle  it  quietly  for  a  pound  or  two? 
How  much  for  me  if  you  lay  hold  of  him  ?" 

"  Half." 

I  began  to  be  afraid  that  he  would  suspect  something 
if  I  was  still  silent.  The  wretch's  eyes  twinkled  again, 
and  he  came  yet  closer. 

"  I  drove  him  to  the  Red  Lion,  corner  of  Dodd  Street 
and  Rudgely  Street.  The  house  was  shut  up,  but  he 
was  let  in  at  the  jug  and  bottle  door,  like  a  man  who 
was  known  to  the  landlord.  That's  as  much  as  I  can 
tell  you,  and  I'm  certain  I'm  right.  He  \vas  the  last  fare 
I  took  up  at  night.  The  next  morning  master  gave  me 
the  sack — said  I  cribbed  his  corn  and  his  fares.  I  wish 
I  had." 

I  gathered  from  this  that  the  crook-backed  man  had 
been  a  cab-driver. 

"Why  don't  you  speak?"  he  asked,  suspiciously. 
"  Has  she  been  telling  you  a  pack  of  lies  about  me  ? 
What  did  she  say  when  she  came  home  ?" 

"  What  ought  she  to  have  said  ?" 

"  She  ought  to  have  said  my  fare  was  drunk,  and  she 
came  in  the  way  as  he  was  going  to  get  into  the  cab. 
That's  what  she  ought  to  have  said  to  begin  with." 

"  But  after  ?" 

"  Well,  after,  my  fare,  by  way  of  larking  with  her,  puts 
out  his  leg  for  to  trip  her  up,  and  she  stumbles  and 
catches  at  me  for  to  save  herself,  and  tears  off  one  of 
the  limp  ends  of  my  rotten  old  tie.  '  What  do  you  mean 
by  that,  you  brute  ?'  says  she,  turning  round  as  soon  as 
she  was  steady  on  her  legs,  to  my  fare.  Says  my  fare  to 


THE    QUEEN    OF  HEARTS.  453 

her, '  I  means  to  teach  you  to  keep  a  civil  tongue  in  your 
head.'  And  he  ups  with  his  fist,  and — what's  come  to 
you,  now  ?  What  are  you  looking  at  me  like  that  for  ? 
How  do  you  think  a  man  of  my  size  was  to  take  her  part 
against  a  man  big  enough  to  have  eaten  me  up  ?  Look 
as  much  as  you  like,  in  my  place  you  would  have  done 
what  I  done — drew  off  when  he  shook  his  fist  at  you, 
and  swore  he'd  be  the  death  of  you  if  you  didn't  start 
your  horse  in  no  time." 

I  saw  he  was  working  himself  up  into  a  rage ;  but  I 
could  not,  if  my  life  had  depended  on  it,  have  stood  near 
him  or  looked  at  him  any  longer.  I  just  managed  to 
stammer  out  that  I  had  been  walking  a  long  way,  and 
that,  not  being  used  to  much  exercise,  I  felt  faint  and 
giddy  with  fatigue.  He  only  changed  from  angry  to 
sulky  when  I  made  that  excuse.  I  got  a  little  farther 
away  from  him,  and  then  added  that  if  he  would  be  at 
the  Mews  entrance  the  next  evening  I  should  have  some- 
thing more  to  say  and  something  more  to  give  him.  He 
grumbled  a  few  suspicious  words  in  answer  about  doubt- 
ing whether  he  should  trust  me  to  come  back.  Fortu- 
nately, at  that  moment,  a  policeman  passed  on  the  op- 
posite side  of  the  way.  He  slunk  down  the  Mews  im- 
mediately, and  I  was  free  to  make  my  escape. 

How  I  got  home  I  can't  say,  except  that  I  think  I  ran 
the  greater  part  of  the  way.  Sally  opened  the  door,  ai;d 
asked  if  any  thing  was  the  matter  the  moment  she  saw 
my  face.  I  answered,  "  Nothing — nothing."  She  stop- 
ped me  as  I  was  going  into  my  room,  and  said, 

"  Smooth  your  hair  a  bit,  and  put  your  collar  straight. 
There's  a  gentleman  in  there  waiting  for  you." 

My  heart  gave  one  great  bound :  I  knew  who  it  was 
in  an  instant,  and  rushed  into  the  room  like  a  mad  wom- 
an. 

"Oh,  Robert,  Robert!" 


454  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

All  my  heart  went  out  to  him  in  those  two  little  words. 
"Good  God,  Anne,  has  any  thing  happened?     Are 
you  ill?" 

"  Mary !  my  poor,  lost,  murdered,  dear,  dear  Mary !" 
That  was  all  I  could  say  before  I  fell  on  his  breast. 

May  2d.  Misfortunes  and  disappointments  have  sad- 
dened him  a  little,  but  toward  me  he  is  unaltered.  He 
is  as  good,  as  kind,  as  gently  and  truly  affectionate  as 
ever.  I  believe  no  other  man  in  the  world  could  have 
listened  to  the  story  of  Mary's  death  with  such  tender- 
ness and  pity  as  he.  Instead  of  cutting  me  short  any 
where,  he  drew  me  on  to  tell  more  than  I  had  intended ; 
and  his  first  generous  words  when  I  had  done  were  to 
assure  me  that  he  would  see  himself  to  the  grass  being 
laid  and  the  flowers  planted  on  Mary's  grave.  I  could 
almost  have  gone  on  my  knees  and  worshiped  him  when 
he  made  me  that  promise. 

Surely  this  best,  and  kindest,  and  noblest  of  men  can 
not  always  be  unfortunate!  My  cheeks  burn  when  I 
think  that  he  has  come  back  with  only  a  few  pounds  in 
his  pocket,  after  all  his  hard  and  honest  struggles  to  do 
well  in  America.  They  must  be  bad  people  there  when 
such  a  man  as  Robert  can  not  get  on  among  them.  He 
now  talks  calmly  and  resignedly  of  trying  for  any  one 
of  the  lowest  employments  by  which  a  man  can  earn  his 
bread  honestly  in  this  great  city — he  who  knows  French, 
who  can  write  so  beautifully !  Oh,  if  the  people  who 
have  places  to  give  away  only  knew  Robert  as  well  as  I 
do,  what  a  salary  he  would  have,  what  a  post  he  would 
be  chosen  to  occupy ! 

I  am  writing  these  lines  alone  while  he  has  gone  to 
the  Mewrs  to  treat  with  the  dastardly,  heartless  wretch 
with  whom  I  spoke  yesterday. 

Robert  says  the  creature — I  won't  call  him  a  man — ' 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  455 

must  be  humored  and  kept  deceived  about  poor  Mary's 
end,  in  order  that  we  may  discover  and  bring  to  justice 
the  monster  whose  drunken  blow  was  the  death  of  her. 
I  shall  know  no  ease  of  mind  till  her  murderer  is  secured, 
and  till  I  am  certain  that  he  will  be  made  to  suffer  for 
his  crimes.  I  wanted  to  go  with  Robert  to  the  Mews, 
but  he  said  it  was  best  that  he  should  carry  out  the  rest 
of  the  investigation  alone,  for  my  strength  and  resolution 
had  been  too  hardly  taxed  already.  He  said  more  words 
in  praise  of  me  for  what  I  have  been  able  to  do  up  to 
this  time,  which  I  am  almost  ashamed  to  write  down 
with  my  own  pen.  Besides,  there  is  no  need :  praise 
from  his  lips  is  one  of  the  things  that  I  can  trust  my  mem- 
ory to  preserve  to  the  latest  day  of  my  life. 

May  3d.  Robert  was  very  long  last  night  before  he 
came  back  to  tell  me  what  he  had  done.  He  easily  rec- 
ognized the  hunchback  at  the  corner  of  the  Mews  by 
my  description  of  him ;  but  he  found  it  a  hard  matter, 
even  with  the  help  of  money,  to  overcome  the  cowardly 
wretch's  distrust  of  him  as  a  stranger  and  a  man.  How- 
ever, when  this  had  been  accomplished,  the  main  diffi- 
culty was  conquered.  The  hunchback,  excited  by  the 
promise  of  more  money,  went  at  once  to  the  Red  Lion 
to  inquire  about  the  person  whom  he  had  driven  there 
in  his  cab.  Robert  followed  him,  and  waited  at  the  cor- 
ner of  the  street.  The  tidings  brought  by  the  cabman 
were  of  the  most  unexpected  kind.  The  murderer — I 
can  write  of  him  by  no  other  name — had  fallen  ill  on  the 
very  night  when  he  was  driven  to  the  Red  Lion,  had 
taken  to  his  bed  there  and  then,  and  was  still  confined  to 
it  at  that  very  moment.  His  disease  was  of  a  kind  that 
is  brought  on  by  excessive  drinking,  and  that  affects  the 
mind  as  well  as  the  body.  The  people  at  the  public 
house  called  it  the  Horrors. 


456  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

Hearing  these  things,  Robert  determined  to  see  if  he 
could  not  find  out  something  more  for  himself  by  going 
and  inquiring  at  the  public  house,  in  the  character  of  one 
of  the  friends  of  the  sick  man  in  bed  up  stairs.  He  made 
two  important  discoveries.  First,  he  found  out  the  name 
and  address  of  the  doctor  in  attendance.  Secondly,  he 
entrapped  the  barman  into  mentioning  the  murderous 
wretch  by  his  name.  This  last  discovery  adds  an  un- 
speakably fearful  interest  to  the  dreadful  misfortune  of 
Mary's  death.  Noah  Truscott,  as  she  told  me  herself  in 
the  last  conversation  I  ever  had  with  her,  was  the  name 
of  the  man  whose  drunken  example  ruined  her  father, 
and  Xoah  Truscott  is  also  the  name  of  the  man  whose 
drunken  fury  killed  her.  There  is  something  that  makes 
one  shudder,  something  supernatural  in  this  awful  fact. 
Robert  agrees  with  me  that  the  hand  of  Providence  must 
have  guided  my  steps  to  that  shop  from  which  all  the 
discoveries  since  made  took  their  rise.  He  says  he  be- 
lieves we  are  the  instruments  of  effecting  a  righteous  ret- 
ribution ;  and,  if  he  spends  his  last  farthing,  he  will  have 
the  investigation  brought  to  its  full  end  in  a  court  of 
justice. 

May  4th.  Robert  went  to-day  to  consult  a  lawyer 
whom  he  knew  in  former  times.  The  lawyer  was  much 
interested,  though  not  so  seriously  impressed  as  he  ought 
to  have  been  by  the  story  of  Mary's  death  and  of  the 
events  that  have  followed  it.  He  gave  Robert  a  confi- 
dential letter  to  take  to  the  doctor  in  attendance  on  the 
double-dyed  villain  at  the  Red  Lion.  Robert  left  the  let- 
ter, and  called  again  and  saw  the  doctor,  who  said  his  pa- 
tient was  getting  better,  and  would  most  likely  be  up 
again  in  ten  days  or  a. fortnight.  This  statement  Robert 
communicated  to  the  lawyer,  and  the  lawyer  has  under- 
taken to  have  the  public  house  properly  watched,  and 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  457 

the  hunchback  (who  is  the  most  important  witness) 
sharply  looked  after  for  the  next  fortnight,  or  longer  if 
necessary.  Here,  then,  the  progress  of  this  dreadful 
business  stops  for  a  while. 

May  5th.  Robert  has  got  a  little  temporary  employ- 
ment in  copying  for  his  friend  the  lawyer.  I  am  work- 
ing harder  than  ever  at  my  needle,  to  make  up  for  the 
time  that  has  been  lost  lately. 

May  6th.  To-day  was  Sunday,  and  Robert  proposed 
that  we  should  go  and  look  at  Mary's  grave.  He,  who 
forgets  nothing  where  a  kindness  is  to  be  done,  has  found 
time  to  perform  the  promise  he  made  to  me  on  the  night 
Avhen  we  first  met.  The  grave  is  already,  by  his  orders, 
covered  with  turf,  and  planted  round  with  shrubs.  Some 
flowers,  and  a  low  headstone,  are  to  be  added,  to  make 
the  place  look  worthier  of  my  poor  lost  darling  who  is 
beneath  it.  Oh,  I  hope  I  shall  live  long  after  I  am  mar- 
ried to  Robert !  I  want  so  much  time  to  show  him  all 
my  gratitude ! 

May  20th.  A  hard  trial  to  my  courage  to-day.  I  have 
given  evidence  at  the  police-office,  and  have  seen  the 
monster  who  murdered  her. 

I  could  only  look  at  him  once.  I  could  just  see  that 
lie  was  a  giant  in  size,  and  that  he  kept  his  dull,  lower- 
ing, bestial  face  turned  toward  the  witness-box,  and  his 
bloodshot,  vacant  eyes  staring  on  me.  For  an  instant  I 
tried  to  confront  that  look ;  for  an  instant  I  kept  my  at- 
tention fixed  on  him — on  his  blotched  face — on  the  short, 
grizzled  hair  above  it — on  his  knotty,  murderous  right 
hand,  hanging  loose  over  the  bar  in  front  of  him,  like  the 
paw  of  a  wild  beast  over  the  edge  of  its  den.  Then  the 
horror  of  him — the  double  horror  of  confronting  him,  in 
20* 


468  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

the  first  place,  and  afterward  of  seeing  that  he  was  an 
old  man — overcame  me,  and  I  turned  away,  faint,  sick, 
and  shuddering.  I  never  faced  him  again ;  and,  at  the 
end  of  my  evidence,  Robert  considerately  took  me  out. 

When  we  met  once  more  at  the  end  of  the  examina- 
tion, Robert  told  me  that  the  prisoner  never  spoke  and 
never  changed  his  position.  He  was  either  fortified  by 
the  cruel  composure  of  a  savage,  or  his  faculties  had  not 
yet  thoroughly  recovered  from  the  disease  that  had  so 
lately  shaken  them.  The  magistrate  seemed  to  doubt  if 
he  was  in  his  right  mind ;  but  the  evidence  of  the  med- 
ical man  relieved  this  uncertainty,  and' the  prisoner  was 
committed  for  trial  on  a  charge  of  manslaughter. 

Why  not  on  a  charge  of  murder  ?  Robert  explained 
the  law  to  me  when  I  asked  that  question.  I  accepted 
the  explanation,  but  it  did  not  satisfy  me.  Mary  Mal- 
linson  Avas  killed  by  a  blow  from  the  hand  of  Noah  Trus- 
cott.  That  is  murder  in  the  sight  of  God.  Why  not 
murder  in  the  sight  of  the  law  also  ? 


June  18th.  To-morrow  is  the  day  appointed  for  the 
trial  at  the  Old  Bailey. 

Before  sunset  this  evening  I  went  to  look  at  Mary's 
grave.  The  turf  has  grown  so  green  since  I  saw  it  last, 
and  the  flowers  are  springing  up  so  prettily.  A  bird 
was  perched  dressing  his  feathers  on  the  low  white  head- 
stone that  bears  the  inscription  of  her  name  and  age.  I 
did  not  go  near  enough  to  disturb  the  little  creature. 
He  looked  innocent  and  pretty  on  the  grave,  as  Mary 
herself  was  in  her  lifetime.  When  he  flew  away  I  went 
and  sat  for  a  little  by  the  headstone,  and  read  the  mourn- 
ful lines  on  it.  Oh,  my  love !  my  love !  what  harm  or 
wrong  had  you  ever  done  in  this  world,  that  you  should 
die  at  eighteen  by  a  blow  from  a  drunkard's  hand  ? 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  459 

June  19th.  The  trial.  My  experience  of  what  happen- 
ed at  it  is  limited,  like  my  experience  of  the  examination 
at  the  police-office,  to  the  time  occupied  in  giving  my 
own  evidence.  They  made  me  say  much  more  than  I 
said  before  the  magistrate.  Between  examination  and 
cross-examination,  I  had  to  go  into  almost  all  the  partic- 
ulars about  poor  Mary  and  her  funeral  that  I  have  writ- 
ten in  this  journal ;  the  jury  listening  to  every  word  I 
spoke  with  the  most  anxious  attention.  At  the  end,  the 
judge  said  a  few  words  to  me  approving  of  my  con- 
duct, and  then  there  was  a  clapping  of  hands  among  the 
people  in  court.  I  was  so  agitated  and  excited  that  I 
trembled  all  over  when  they  let  me  go  out  into  the  air 
again. 

I  looked  at  the  prisoner  both  when  I  entered  the  wit- 
ness-box and  when  I  left  it.  The  lowering  brutality  of 
his  face  \vas  unchanged,  but  his  faculties  seemed  to  be 
more  alive  and  observant  than  they  were  at  the  police- 
office.  A  frightful  blue  change  passed  over  his  face,  and 
he  drew  his  breath  so  heavily  that  the  gasps  were  dis- 
tinctly audible  while  I  mentioned  Mary  by  name,  and 
described  the  mark  of  the  blow  on  her  temple.  When 
they  asked  me  if  I  knew  any  thing  of  the  prisoner,  and  I 
answered  that  I  only  knew  what  Mary  herself  had  told 
me  about  his  having  been  her  father's  ruin,  he  gave  a 
kind  of  groan,  and  struck  both  his  hands  heavily  on  the 
dock.  And  when  I  passed  beneath  him  on  my  way  out 
of  court,  he  leaned  over  suddenly,  whether  to  speak  to 
me  or  to  strike  me  I  can't  say,  for  he  was  immediately 
made  to  stand  upright  again  by  the  turnkeys  on  either 
side  of  him.  While  the  evidence  proceeded  (as  Robert 
described  it  to  me),  the  signs  that  he  was  suffering  un- 
der superstitious  terror  became  more  and  more  appar- 
ent ;  until,  at  last,  just  as  the  lawyer  appointed  to  defend 
him  was  rising  to  speak,  he  suddenly  cried  out,  in  a 


460  THE    QUEEX    OF    HEARTS. 

voice  that  startled  every  one,  up  to  the  very  judge  on 
bench,  "  Stop !" 

There  was  a  pause,  and  all  eyes  looked  at  him.  The 
perspiration  was  pouring  over  his  face  like  water,  and 
he  made  strange,  uncouth  signs  with  his  hands  to  the  • 
judge  opposite.  "  Stop  all  this !"  he  .cried  again  ;  "  I've 
been  the  ruin  of  the  father  and  the  death  of  the  child. 
Hang  me  before  I  do  more  harm !  Hang  me,  for  God's 
sake,  out  of  the  way  !"  As  soon  as  the  shock  produced 
by  this  extraordinary  interruption  had  subsided,  he  was 
removed,  and  there  followed  a  long  discussion  about 
whether  he  was  of  sound  mind  or  not.  The  matter  was 
left  to  the  jury  to  decide  by  their  verdict.  They  found 
him  guilty  of  the  charge  of  manslaughter,  without  the 
excuse  of  insanity.  He  was  brought  up  again,  and  con- 
demned to  transportation  for  life.  All  he  did,  on  hear- 
ing the  dreadful  sentence,  was  to  reiterate  his  desperate 
words,  "  Hang  me  before  I  do  more  harm !  Hang  me, 
for  God's  sake,  out  of  the  way !" 

June  20th.  I  made  yesterday's  entry  in  sadness  of 
heart,  and  I  have  not  been  better  in  my  spirits  to-day. 
It  is  something  to  have  brought  the  murderer  to  the  pun- 
ishment that  he  deserves.  But  the  knowledge  that  this 
most  righteous  act  of  retribution  is  accomplished  brings 
no  consolation  with  it.  The  law  does  indeed  punish 
Noah  Truscott  for  his  crime,  but  can  it  raise  up  Mary 
Mallinson  from  her  last  resting-place  in  the  church- 
yard? 

While  writing  of  the  law,  I  ought  to  record  that  the 
heartless  wretch  who  allowed  Mary  to  be  struck  down 
in  his  presence  without  making  an  attempt  to  defend  her 
is  not  likely  to  escape  with  perfect  impunity.  The  po- 
liceman who  looked  after  him  to  insure  his  attendance  at 
the  trial  discovered  that  he  had  committed  past  offenses, 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  ,        461 

for  which  the  law  can  make  him  answer.  A  summons 
was  executed  upon  him,  and  he  was  taken  before  the 
magistrate  the  moment  he  left  the  court  after  giving  his 
evidence. 

I  had  just  written  these  few  lines,  and  was  closing  my 
journal,  when  there  came  a  knock  at  the  door,  i  an- 
swered it,  thinking  that  Robert  had  called  on  his  way 
home  to  say  good-night,  and  found  myself  face  to  face 
with  a  strange  gentleman,  who  immediately  asked  for 
Anne  Rodway.  On  hearing  that  I  was  the  person  in- 
quired for,  he  requested  five  minutes  conversation  with 
me.  I  showed  him  into  the  little  empty  room  at  the 
back  of  the  house,  and  waited,  rather  surprised  and  flut- 
tered, to  hear  what  he  had  to  say. 

He  was  a  dark  man,  with  a  serious  manner,  and  a 
short,  stern  way  of  speaking.  I  was  certain  that  he  was 
a  stranger,  and  yet  there  seemed  something  in  his  face 
not  unfamiliar  to  me.  He  began  by  taking  a  newspaper 
from  his  pocket,  and  asking  me  it  I  was  the  person  who 
had  given  evidence  at  the  trial  of  Noah  Truscott  on  a 
charge  of  manslaughter.  I  answered  immediately  that  I 
was. 

"  I  have  been  for  nearly  two  years  in  London  seeking 
Mary  Mallinson,  and  always  seeking  her  in  vain,"  he  said. 
"  The  first  and  only  news  I  have  had  of  her  I  found  in 
the  newspaper  report  of  the  trial  yesterday." 

He  still  spoke  calmly,  but  there  was  something  in  the 
look  of  his  eyes  which  showed  me  that  he  was  suffering 
in  spirit.  A  sudden  nervousness  overcame  me,  and  I 
was  obliged  to  sit  down. 

"  You  knew  Mary  Mallinson,  sir  ?"  I  asked,  as  quietly 
as  I  could. 

"  I  am  her  brother." 

I  clasped  my  hands  and  hid  my  face  in  despair.     Oh, 


462  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

the  bitterness  of  heart  with  which  I  heard  him  say  those 
simple  words ! 

"  You  were  very  kind  to  her,"  said  the  calm,  tearless 
man.  "  In  her  name  and  for  her  sake,  I  thank  you." 

"Oh,  sir,"  I  said,  "why  did  you  never  write  to  her 
when  you  were  in  foreign  parts  ?" 

"I  wrote  often,"  he  answered;  "but  each  of  my  let- 
ters contained  a  remittance  of  money.  Did  Mary  tell 
you  she  had  a  step-mother  ?  If  she  did,  you  may  guess 
why  none  of  my  letters  were  allowed  to  reach  her.  I 
now  know  that  this  woman  robbed  my  sister.  Has  she 
lied  in  telling  me  that  she  was  never  informed  of  Mary's 
place  of  abode  ?" 

I  remembered  that  Mary  had  never  communicated 
with  her  step-mother  after  the  separation,  and  could 
therefore  assure  him  that  the  woman  had  spoken  the 
truth. 

He  paused  for  a  moment  after  that,  and  sighed.  Then 
he  took  out  a  pocket-book,  and  said, 

"  I  have  already  arranged  for  the  payment  of  any  le- 
gal expenses  that  may  have  been  incurred  by  the  trial, 
but  I  have  still  to  reimburse  you  for  the  funeral  charges 
which  you  so  generously  defrayed.  Excuse  my  speaking 
bluntly  on  this  subject ;  I  am  accustomed  to  look  on  all 
matters  where  money  is  concerned  purely  as  matters  of 
business." 

I  saw  that  he  was  taking  several  bank-notes  out  of  the 
pocket-book,  and  stopped  him. 

"  I  will  gratefully  receive  back  the  little  money  I  act- 
ually paid,  sir,  because  I  am  not  well  off,  and  it  would  be 
an  ungracious  act  of  pride  in  me  to  refuse  it  from  you," 
I  said ;  "  but  I  see  you  handling  bank-notes,  any  one  of 
which  is  far  beyond  the  amount  you  have  to  repay  me. 
Pray  put  them  back,  sir.  What  I  did  for  your  poor  lost 
sister  I  did  from  my  love  and  fondness  for  her.  You 


THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS.  463 

have  thanked  me  for  that,  and  your  thanks  are  all  I  can 
receive." 

He  had  hitherto  concealed  his  feelings,  but  I  saw  them 
now  begin  to  get  the  better  of  him.  His  eyes  softened, 
and  he  took  my  hand  and  squeezed  it  hard. 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,"  he  said ;  "  I  beg  your  pardon, 
with  all  my  heart." 

There  was  silence  between  us,  for  I  was  crying,  and  I 
believe,  at  heart,  he  was  crying  too.  At  last  he  dropped 
my  hand,  and  seemed  to  change  back,  by  an  effort,  to  his 
former  calmness. 

"  Is  there  no  one  belonging  to  you  to  whom  I  can  be 
of  service  ?"  he  asked.  "  I  see  among  the  witnesses  on 
the  trial  the  name  of  a  young  man  who  appears  to  have 
assisted  you  in  the  inquiries  which  led  to  the  prisoner's 
conviction.  Is  he  a  relation  ?" 

"  No,  sir — at  least,  not  now — but  I  hope — " 

"  What  ?" 

"  I  hope  that  he  may,  one  day,  be  the  nearest  and  dear- 
est relation  to  me  that  a  woman  can  have."  I  said  those 
words  boldly,  because  I  was  afraid  of  his  otherwise  tak- 
ing some  wrong  view  of  the  connection  between  Robert 
and  me. 

"  One  day  ?"  he  repeated.  "  One  day  may  be  a  long 
time  hence." 

"  We  are  neither  of  us  well  off,  sir,"  I  said.  "  One 
day  means  the  day  when  we  are  a  little  richer  than  we 
are  now." 

"  Is  the  young  man  educated  ?  Can  he  produce  testi- 
monials to  his  character?  Oblige  me  by  writing  his 
name  and  address  down  on  the  back  of  that  card." 

When  I  had  obeyed,  in  a  handwriting  which  I  am 
afraid  did  me  no  credit,  he  took  out  another  card  and 
gave  it  to  me. 

"I  shall  leave  England  to-morrow,"  he  said.     "There 


464  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

is  nothing  now  to  keep  me  in  my  own  country.  If  you 
are  ever  in  any  difficulty  or  distress  (which  I  pray  God 
you  may  never  be),  apply  to  my  London  agent,  whose 
address  you  have  there." 

He  stopped,  and  looked  at  me  attentively,  then  took 
my  hand  again. 

"  Where  is  she  buried  ?"  he  said,  suddenly,  in  a  quick 
whisper,  turning  his  head  away. 

I  told  him,  and  added  that  we  had  made  the  grave  as 
beautiful  as  we  could  with  grass  and  flowers. 

I  saw  his  lips  whiten  and  tremble. 

"  God  bless  and  reward  you !"  he  said,  and  drew  me 
toward  him  quickly  and  kissed  my  forehead.  I  was 
quite  overcome,  and  sank  down  and  hid  my  face  on  the 

table.     When  I  looked  up  again  he  was  gone. 

*  *  *  *  *  * 

June  25th,  1841.  I  write  these  lines  on  my  wedding 
morning,  when  little  more  than  a  year  has  passed  since 
Robert  returned  to  England. 

His  salary  was  increased  yesterday  to  one  hundred 
and  fifty  pounds  a  year.  If  I  only  knew  where  Mr. 
Mallinson  was,  I  would  write  and  tell  him  of  our  present 
happiness.  But  for  the  situation  which  his  kindness 
procured  for  Robert,  we  might  still  have  been  waiting 
vainly  for  the  day  that  has  now  come. 

I  am  to  work  at  home  for  the  future,  and  Sally  is  to 
help  us  in  our  new  abode.  If  Mary  could  have  lived  to 
see  this  day!  I  am  not  ungrateful  for  my  blessings; 
but  oh,  how  I  miss  that  sweet  face  on  this  morning  of 
all  others ! 

I  got  up  to-day  early  enough  to  go  alone  to  the  grave, 
and  to  gather  the  nosegay  that  now  lies  before  me  from 
the  flowers  that  grow  round  it.  I  shall  put  it  in  my 
bosom  when  Robert  comes  to  fetch  me  to  the  church. 
Mary  would  have  been  my  bridesmaid  if  she  had  lived ; 
and  I  can't  forget  Mary,  even  on  my  wedding-day.  *  * 


THE  NIGHT. 

THE  last  words  of  the  last  story  fell  low  and  trembling 
from  Owen's  lips.  He  waited  for  a  moment  while  Jes- 
sie dried  the  tears  which  Anne  Rodway's  simple  diary 
had  drawn  from  her  warm  young  heart,  then  closed  the 
manuscript,  and,  taking  her  hand,  patted  it  in  his  gentle, 
fatherly  way. 

"  You  will  be  glad  to  hear,  my  love,"  he  said,  "  that  I 
can  speak  from  personal  experience  of  Anne  Rodway's 
happiness.  She  came  to  live  in  my  parish  soon  after  the 
trial  at  which  she  appeared  as  chief  witness,  and  I  was 
the  clergyman  who  married  her.  Months  before  that  I 
knew  her  story,  and  had  read  those  portions  of  her  diary 
which  you  have  just  heard.  When  I  made  her  my  little 
present  on  her  wedding-day,  and  when  she  gratefully  en- 
treated me  to  tell  her  what  she  could  do  for  me  in  re- 
turn, I  asked  for  a  copy  of  her  diary  to  keep  among  the 
papers  that  I  treasured  most.  '  The  reading  of  it  now 
and  then,'  I  said, '  will  encourage  that  faith  in  the  bright- 
er and  better  part  of  human  nature  which  I  hope,  by 
God's  help,  to  preserve  pure  to  my  dying  day.'  In  that 
way  I  became  possessed  of  the  manuscript :  it  was  Anne's 
husband  who  made  the  copy  for  me.  You  have  noticed 
a  few  withered  leaves  scattered  here  and  there  between 
the  pages.  They  were  put  there,  years  since,  by  the 
bride's  own  hand :  they  are  all  that  now  remain  of  the 
flowers  that  Anne  Rodway  gathered  on  her  marriage 
morning  from  Mary  Mallinson's  grave." 

Jessie  tried  to  answer,  but  the  words  failed  on  her 
lips.  Between  the  effect  of  the  story,  and  the  anticipa- 


466  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

tion  of  the  parting  now  so  near  at  hand,  the  good,  Im- 
pulsive, affectionate  creature  was  fairly  overcome.  She 
laid  her  head  on  Owen's  shoulder,  and  kept  tight  hold 
of  his  hand,  and  let  her  heart  speak  simply  for  itself, 
without  attempting  to  help  it  by  a  single  word. 

The  silence  that  followed  was  broken  harshly  by  the 
tower  clock.  The  heavy  hammer  slowly  rang  out  ten 
strokes  through  the  gloomy  nighttime  and  the  dying 
storm. 

I  waited  till  the  last  humming  echo  of  the  clock  faint- 
ed into  dead  stillness.  I  listened  once  more  attentively, 
and  again  listened  in  vain.  Then  I  rose,  and  proposed 
to  my  brothers  that  we  should  leave  our  guest  to  com- 
pose herself  for  the  night. 

When  Owen  and  Morgan  were  ready  to  quit  the  room, 
I  took  her  by  the  hand,  and  drew  her  a  little  aside. 

"  You  leave  us  early,  my  dear,"  I  said ;  "  but,  before 
you  go  to-morrow  morning — " 

I  stopped  to  listen  for  the  last  time,  before  the  words 
were  spoken  which  committed  me  to  the  desperate  ex- 
periment of  pleading  George's  cause  in  defiance  of  his 
own  request.  Nothing  caught  my  ear  but  the  sweep  of 
the  weary  weakened  wind  and  the  melancholy  surging 
of  the  shaken  trees. 

"  But,  before  you  go  to-morrow  morning,"  I  resumed, 
"  I  want  to  speak  to  you  in  private.  We  shall  breakfast 
at  eight  o'clock.  Is  it  asking  too  much  to  beg  you  to 
come  and  see  me  alone  in  my  study  at  half  past  seven  ?" 

Just  as  her  lips  opened  to  answer  me  I  saw  a  change 
pass  over  her  face.  I  had  kept  her  hand  in  mine  while 
I  was  speaking,  and  I  must  have  pressed  it  unconscious- 
ly so  hard  as  almost  to  hurt  her.  She  may  even  have 
uttered  a  few  words  of  remonstrance ;  but  they  never 
reached  me:  my  whole  hearing  sense  was  seized,  ab- 
sorbed, petrified.  At  the  very  instant  when  I  had  ceased 


THE    QUKKX    OF    IIKAKTS.  46? 

speaking,  I,  and  I  alone,  heard  a  faint  sound — a  sound 
that  was  new  to  me — fly  past  the  Glen  Tower  on  the 
wings  of  the  wind. 

"  Open  the  window,  for  God's  sake !"  I  cried. 

My  hand  mechanically  held  hers  tighter  and  tighter. 
She  struggled  to  free  it,  looking  hard  at  me  with  pale 
cheeks  and  frightened  eyes.  Owen  hastened  up  and  re- 
leased her,  and  put  his  arms  round  me. 

"  Griffith,  Griffith !"  he  whispered,  "  control  yourself, 
for  George's  sake." 

Morgan  hurried  to  the  window  and  threw  it  wide 
open. 

The  wind  and  rain  rushed  in  fiercely.  Welcome,  wel- 
come wind !  They  all  heard  it  now.  "  Oh,  Father  in 
heaven,  so  merciful  to  fathers  on  earth — my  son,  my  son !" 

It  came  in,  louder  and  louder  with  every  gust  of  wind 
— the  joyous,  rapid  gathering  roll  of  wheels.  My  eyes 
fastened  on  her  as  if  they  could  see  to  her  heart,  while 
she  stood  there  with  her  sweet  face  turned  on  me  all  pale 
and  startled.  I  tried  to  speak  to  her ;  I  tried  to  break 
away  from  Owen's  arms,  to  throw  my  own  arms  round 
her,  to  keep  her  on  my  bosom  till  he  came  to  take  her 
from  me.  But  all  my  strength  had  gone  in  the  long 
waiting  and  the  long  suspense.  My  head  sank  on  Owen's 
breast — but  I  still  heard  the  wheels.  Morgan  loosened 
my  cravat,  and  sprinkled  water  over  my  face — I  still 
heard  the  wheels.  The  poor  terrified  girl  ran  into  her 
room,  and  came  back  with  her  smelling-salts — I  heard 
the  carriage  stop  at  the  house.  The  room  whirled  round 
and  round  with  me;  but  I  heard  the  eager  hurry  of  foot- 
steps in  the  hall,  and  the  opening  of  the  door.  In  anoth- 
er moment  my  son's  voice  rose  clear  and  cheerful  from 
below,  greeting  the  old  servants  who  loved  him.  The 
dear,  familiar  tones  just  poured  into  my  ear,  and  then, 
the  moment  they  filled  it,  hushed  me  suddenly  to  rest, 


468  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

When  I  came  to  myself  again  my  eyes  opened  upon 
George.  I  was  lying  on  the  sofa,  still  in  the  same  room ; 
the  lights  we  had  read  by  in  the  evening  were  burning 
on  the  table ;  my  son  was  kneeling  at  my  pillow,  and  we 
two  were  alone. 


THE  MORNING. 

THE  wind  is  fainter,  but  there  is  still  no  calm.  The 
rain  is  ceasing,  but  there  is  still  no  sunshine.  The  view 
from  my  window  shows  me  the  mist  heavy  on  the  earth, 
and  a  dim  gray  veil  drawn  darkly  over  the  sky.  Less 
than  twelve  hours  since,  such  a  prospect  would  have  sad- 
dened me  for  the  day.  I  look  out  at  it  this  morning, 
through  the  bright  medium  of  my  own  happiness,  and 
not  the  shadow  of  a  shade  falls  across  the  steady  inner 
sunshine  that  is  pouring  over  my  heart. 

The  pen  lingers  fondly  in  my  hand,  and  yet  it  is  little, 
very  little,  that  I  have  left  to  say.  The  Purple  Volume 
lies  open  by  my  side,  with  the  stories  ranged  together  in 
it  in  the  order  in  which  they  were  read.  My  son  has 
learned  to  prize  them  already  as  the  faithful  friends  who 
served  him  at  his  utmost  need.  I  have  only  to  wind  off 
the  little  thread  of  narrative  on  which  they  are  all  strung 
together  before  the  volume  is  closed  and  our  anxious  lit- 
erary experiment  fairly  ended. 

My  son  and  I  had  a  quiet  hour  together  on  that  hap- 
py night  before  we  retired  to  rest.  The  little  love-plot 
invented  in  George's  interests  now  required  one  last 
stroke  of  diplomacy  to  complete  it  before  we  all  threw 
off  our  masks  and  assumed  our  true  characters  for  the 
future.  When  my  son  and  I  parted  for  the  night,  we 
had  planned  the  necessary  stratagem  for  taking  our  love- 
ly guest  by  surprise  as  soon  as  she  was  out  of  her  bed  in 
the  morning. 

Shortly  after  seven  o'clock  I  sent  a  message  to  Jessie 


470  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

by  her  maid,  informing  her  that  a  good  night's  rest  had 
done  wonders  for  me,  and  that  I  expected  to  see  her  in 
my  study  at  half  past  seven,  as  we  had  arranged  the 
evening  before.  As  soon  as  her  answer,  promising  to  be 
punctual  to  the  appointment,  had  reached  me,  I  took 
George  into  my  study— left  him  in  my  place  to  plead 
his  own  cause — and  stole  away,  five  minutes  before  the 
half  hour,  to  join  my  brothers  in  the  breakfast-room. 

Although  the  sense  of  my  own  happiness  disposed  me 
to  take  the  brightest  view  of  my  son's  chances,  I  must 
nevertheless  acknowledge  that  some  nervous  anxieties 
still  fluttered  about  my  heart  while  the  slow  minutes  of 
suspense  were  counting  themselves  out  in  the  breakfast- 
room.  I  had  as  little  attention  to  spare  for  Owen's 
quiet  prognostications  of  success  as  for  Morgan's  pitiless 
sarcasms  on  love,  courtship,  and  matrimony.  A  quarter 
of  an  hour  elapsed — then  twenty  minutes.  The  hand 
moved  on,  and  the  clock  pointed  to  five  minutes  to  eight, 
before  I  heard  the  study  door  open,  and  before  the  sound 
of  rapidly-advancing  footsteps  warned  me  that  George 
was  coming  into  the  room. 

His  beaming  face  told  the  good  news  before  a  word 
<;ould  be  spoken  on  either  side.  The  excess  of  his  hap- 
piness literally  and  truly  deprived  him  of  speech.  He 
stood  eagerly  looking  at  us  all  three,  with  outstretched 
hands  and  glistening  eyes. 

"Have  I  folded  up  my  surplice  forever,"  asked  Owen, 
"  or  am  I  to  wear  it  once  again,  George,  in  your  serv- 
ice?" 

"Answer  this  question  first,"  interposed  Morgan, 
with  a  look  of  grim  anxiety.  "Have  you  actually  taken 
your  young  woman  off  my  hands,  or  have  you  not?" 

Xo  direct  answer  followed  either  question.  George's 
feelings  had  been  too  deeply  stirred  to  allow  him  to  re- 
turn jest  for  jost  at  a  moment's  notice. 


THE    QUEEX    OF   HEARTS.  471 

"  Oh,  father,  how  can  I  thank  you !"  he  said.  "  And 
you !  and  you !"  he  added,  looking  at  Owen  and  Morgan 
gratefully. 

"  You  must  thank  Chance  as  well  as  thank  us,"  I  re- 
plied, speaking  as  lightly  as  my  heart  would  let  me,  to 
encourage  him.  "The  advantage  of  numbers  in  our 
little  love-plot  was  all  on  our  side.  Remember,  George, 
we  were  three  to  one." 

While  I  was  speaking  the  breakfast-room  door  opened 
noiselessly,  and  showed  us  Jessie  standing  on  the  thresh- 
old, uncertain  whether  to  join  us  or  to  run  back  to  her 
own  room.  Her  bright  complexion  heightened  to  a 
deep  glow  ;  the  tears  just  rising  in  her  eyes,  and  not  yet 
falling  from  them ;  her  delicate  lips  trembling  a  little,  as 
if  they  were  still  shyly  conscious  of  other  lips  that  had 
pressed  them  but  a  few  minutes  since ;  her  attitude  ir- 
resolutely graceful ;  her  hair  just  disturbed  enough  over 
her  forehead  and  her  cheeks  to  add  to  the  charm  of  them 
— she  stood  before  us,  the  loveliest  living  picture  of 
youth,  and  tenderness,  and  virgin  love  that  eyes  ever 
looked  on.  George  and  I  both  advanced  together  to 
meet  her  at  the  door.  But  the  good,  grateful  girl  had 
heard  from  my  son  the  true  story  of  all  that  I  had  done, 
and  hoped,  and  suffered  for  the  last  ten  days,  and  showed 
charmingly  how  she  felt  it  by  turning  at  once  to  me. 

"  May  I  stop  at  the  Glen  Tower  a  little  longer  ?"  she 
asked,  simply. 

"  If  you  think  you  can  get  through  your  evenings,  my 
love,"  I  answered.  "  But  surely  you  forget  that  the  Pur- 
ple Volume  is  closed,  and  that  the  stories  have  all  come 
to  an  end  ?" 

She  clasped  her  arms  round  my  neck,  and  laid  her 
cheek  fondly  against  mine. 

"  How  you  must  have  suffered  yesterday !"  she  whis- 
pered, softly. 


472  THE    QUEEN    OF    HEARTS. 

"  And  how  happy  I  am  to-day !" 

The  tears  gathered  in  her  eyes  and  dropped  over  her 
cheeks  as  she  raised  her  head  to  look  at  me  affectionately 
when  I  said  those  words.  I  gently  unclasped  her  arms 
and  led  her  to  George. 

"  So  you  really  did  love  him,  then,  after  all,"  I  whis- 
pered, "  though  you  were  too  sly  to  let  me  discover  it  ?" 

A  smile  broke  out  among  the  tears  as  her  eyes  wan- 
dered away  from  mine  and  stole  a  look  at  my  son.  The 
clock  struck  the  hour,  and  the  servant  came  in  with 
breakfast.  A  little  domestic  interruption  of  this  kind 
was  all  that  was  wanted  to  put  us  at  our  ease.  We 
drew  round  the  table  cheerfully,  and  set  the  Queen  of 
Hearts  at  the  head  of  it,  in  the  character  of  mistress  of 
the  house  already. 


THE  E¥D. 


»»?  SSfflE'LRJS2N*!-  LIBRARY  FACILI1 


••••in    uiiim  mi  mi  IIHI  |   ||  in  mi 

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